


The Silence After Song

by ThereBeWhalesHere



Series: Stories about Shine [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 1976, Busking, But the rock and roll is played on violin, Gay, M/M, Music, New York City, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, and the drugs come in later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-02 13:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15797538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereBeWhalesHere/pseuds/ThereBeWhalesHere
Summary: Shine Trzebinski (yes, that's his real name) plays violin in New York City subway stations to earn a little extra cash. Over the months, he's caught the eye of a frequent commuter, a well-dressed man with apparent good taste. But the man has only ever watched Shine's performance silently and tossed a few dollars his way. Tonight is the first night Shine finds out they have more in common than he thought. Set in 1976 New York City.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this deals with my beloved original Character, Shine. He's nearly a prodigy violinist, but never received formal training and so performs pop song covers for cash. There's SO MUCH MORE to his story than this (and in fact my wife and I have a legitimate story we've plotted out set in the '80s, a full decade after this, wherein Shine meets the actual love of his life), but I recently hyperfixated on Shine's _first_ love. 
> 
> So this is how they meet. And, subsequently, the rest of their relationship.
> 
>  **Content Warning** : Shine is 17 years old in this (a few months from 18), and Harry is in his late 30s. Shine lies about his age, so Harry does _not_ know that, and nothing at all happens here that is not 100 percent consensual. This story does include brief descriptions of sexual activity, but nothing explicit. This is supposed to be portrayed as an unhealthy relationship that is not sustainable, and I am not endorsing Harry's attraction to Shine by writing it. Also, if it matters to you, 17 was the age of consent in New York in 1976. Anyway, if it still squicks you out, please avoid reading! Thank you!

**October, 1976**

That glorious limbo between sunset and full night when all the bougie businessmen got off work was magic hour when it came to making money. All Shine had to do was play his violin, make eye contact with enough passersby, flash his smile, and change would fall into his violin case as if it were raining from the sky. He established a circuit of Manhattan subway stations around this time of day, but this one was his favorite. It was where he ran into all the rich folks, but not the ones that were _too_ rich to look sideways at street trash like him. Nor too rich to take the subway.

 

In the last year or so, he had played at nearly every stop in the city, but he loved this one, a now familiar patch of fluorescent light in a crowded corridor leading toward the stairs up to the bustling streets, where comers and goers came and went, passing him all the while.

 

At least, most of them passed. Like most nights that Shine found himself here, _he_ was watching again. Mid-30s, if Shine had to guess; dark hair, tan coat, a briefcase clutched in his hand, a three-piece suit bearing wrinkles from a long subway ride. He stood as he always did on the other side of the corridor, watching Shine silently through the crowd, a gentle smile on his face. Shine met his eyes every once in a while, always gave him a little smile, and whenever the man got his fill he’d approach, drop a few bucks in Shine’s case, nod and walk away.

 

He stuck around longer tonight than he usually did. Shine didn’t know why, but it didn’t really matter so long as he still left a generous tip. As the crowd between them thinned out, as Shine began to play his last couple songs, he simply avoided looking directly at the man, assuming he’d be on his way soon.

 

But as Shine struck the last chord of “Shining Star” (a recent personal favorite; though not everyone was fond of disco), and gave a bow to the passersby who hardly seemed to notice him, the man approached as he did every night.

 

Though -- no. _Not_ as he did every night. There was intent in his eyes, and he wasn’t fishing into his pocket for change. Shine watched him weave through the crowd, and he gave the man his best smile.

 

Warmly, nervously, the man returned it. “Do you take requests?” The man asked, his voice pleasant and deep. He spoke somewhat quietly, so Shine scooched a little closer, holding his violin at his side, leaning the bow against his shoulder.

 

“Sure,” Shine said, shrugging. “If I’ve heard it I can play it.” He might’ve been bragging a little, but he never bragged when it wasn’t true.

 

“Well,” the man said, “do you know Elvis?”

 

Shine raised an eyebrow. “Y’want me to play _Elvis_? God, if I gotta. Which song?”

 

“Any of them,” the man replied genially. “I’ve been watching you play a couple months now and I’ve never heard anything older than ten years.”

 

Shine grinned. “I got some oldies in my back pocket, but the new hits bring in the money.”

 

“I’ll give you a tenner for ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’”

 

Shine’s smile widened. “You’re goin’ easy on me, big guy,” he said, and a part of him wished he had missed the flush hitting the man’s cheeks at the silly nickname. Because that flush sent a wave of warmth cascading through Shine’s chest, and suddenly he recognized this for what it was. This man was _flirting_ with him, if a little awkwardly. And Shine was flirting _back_ \-- if a little unintentionally.

 

He cleared his throat to cover his own silence, and brought his violin up to his shoulder, resting his chin against it. Running over the first notes in his mind before putting bow to string, he gave the man a little smile. This wasn’t a song he’d ever really attempted, but he knew the tune, the chords. It would be imperfect, but only to a trained ear. It would, at least, be recognizable, and hopefully charming if it happened to come out clumsy.

 

As he played, he kept his eyes closed, but he could feel the man’s gaze on him. There was something pleasantly heavy in the knowledge that he was being watched -- being appreciated, and though the station wasn’t even nearly empty, it felt suddenly as if they were the only two beings there. Them and the music.

 

He forgot about the interruptions of grumbling crowds and announcements over PA speakers, recalling the words to a song he didn’t even much care for, except that he loved every note that came out of this violin. And playing a song always made it feel new. In this moment, at least, it felt new.

 

As Shine ran the bow along the strings for the final note, he opened his eyes and lifted them to the man’s face. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but he looked satisfied, if Shine had to put a word to it. Satisfied and, well, a little unsure.

 

“You’re good,” the man said. “I, ah --” he paused, cleared his throat, and reached into his pocket. As promised, he produced a $10 bill and held it out for Shine to take. Didn’t even drop it in the case this time. He _was_ being bold. As Shine took the bill from the man’s hand, their fingers brushed -- the touch felt nearly electric. “Thanks,” Shine said, pocketing the money. “Any other requests?”

 

Subtly, the man glanced around the station before he returned his gaze to Shine. “Well,” he said. “I, ah -- I play a little myself, you see. Guitar, violin, viola, piano. … Classically trained.”

Shine’s smile fell a little bit. He got folks like this sometimes, the ones who noticed the imperfections in his posture, who derided him his pop music when they played “the greats,” which Shine had come to understand meant a whole host of dead Germans. He just hadn’t expected his biggest (albeit silent) fan to be one of them.

 

“Ah,” Shine said.

 

The man’s eyes widened. “I just mean to say,” he said in a rush, “that if you wanted to -- to see some of my instruments --” he paused, closed his eyes, took a breath and began again. “I could show you some classical techniques, teach you a few chords on guitar or ... something. If you’re interested.”

 

So that was where this was going after all.

 

Shine’s responding smile may have looked like a nervous one, though he tried to project the same cocky self assuredness that had likely secured this man’s attention in the first place. Goodness knew it wasn’t the quality of his playing. He leaned in closer, speaking quietly so as not to be overheard by the bustling commuters. “So you wanna take me home is what you’re saying?” he asked, and the bright red flush to the man’s cheeks was answer enough.

 

Shine didn’t fail to notice the look of caution in his eyes, nor the determination -- as if he had suffered every manner of rejection Shine could come up with from civility to violence, and would accept it. Shine had only ever fooled around with his classmates -- didn’t know what it might be like out here, danger around every corner for daring to ask someone back to your apartment. And, too, Shine had the good fortune of liking women as well as men. Maybe this man didn’t.

 

And maybe he was anticipating rejection, disgust, fear.

 

“Okay,” Shine said when the man failed to speak. “Yeah, let me pack up. But I swear, you try to kill me or take Bertha and I’ll raise hell.”

 

The man’s eyes widened as Shine knelt for his case, scooping the money into the pockets of his jacket. “Bertha?”

 

“My violin.”

 

“Oh, well I -- I promise that’s not my intent--”

 

Shine waved him away as he knelt to set his violin back into its case, strapping in the bow lovingly. He kissed his fingertips, pressed them to the polished wood. “I’m kidding,” he said, looking up with a little smile.

 

The man’s brief flash of fear faded, and Shine wondered how a man like him with broad shoulders and a square jaw and an air of privileged power could be afraid of _Shine_.

 

But then, of course, there were different kinds of fear.

 

As soon as Shine snapped the case closed and rose back to his feet, the man held out an arm, inviting Shine forward. Together, they joined the thin crowd spilling out of the station, and the man cleared his throat. “My name is Harry,” he said gently. “I apologize, I should have introduced myself.”

 

Shine shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’m Shine.”

 

“Shine?” Harry asked skeptically. “Like starshine, sunshine?”

 

“You can call me starshine if you want,” Shine said with a wink. “It’s nicer than the nicknames I used to get.”

 

“Forgive me, it _is_ an odd name.”

  
Shine rolled his eyes. “Yeah, trust me I know. Been hearin’ that my whole life.”

 

Harry gave him a little smile. “As someone who was called ‘fairy Harry’ throughout adolescence, I can empathize.”

 

Shine glanced over to him, offering his own smile if only so Harry knew that Shine understood the unspoken admission there. If Shine had any lingering doubts of Harry’s particular proclivities, or his intentions, they died then with a fresh wave of empathy. Shine was used to getting his own fair share of flack for the perceived femininity in him. But it looked like, if Harry had ever been obviously queer, he’d stamped most of it down by now. He looked, spoke, and seemed to act like any other man in a suit. If a little more shy than most.

 

Shine wondered what Harry might’ve been like as a teenager. He didn’t ask.

 

The two of them walked in silence for a while, down bright streets with yellow light shining from high windows and the white glare of passing cars flashing over them. Harry’s apartment building was indistinguishable from the rest lining the sidewalk, one of those huge Manhattan high-rises with a lobby that glowed as if it were the gates of heaven, all gold-gilded and warm inside. Shine had passed a hundred places like this, and had never once thought of going inside.

 

As they stepped through the spinning glass door, strode the length of the dark teal carpet, and made it into the elevator (a damned _elevator_ ) Shine had to stop himself from asking how Harry could afford a life like this. It was the kind of luxury Shine had wet dreams about. Even the elevator was all polished wood and gleaming mirrors -- not a handprint on them. In the mirror reflection, he caught Harry’s eye and smiled.

 

“Fancy,” he said, the numbers above the door flashing as they climbed higher. “You live here long?”

 

“About a year,” Harry replied, and he looked a little proud at Shine’s compliment -- or his interest. Shine couldn’t be sure. But it helped his own nerves to know his opinion carried some weight. Even here.

 

Harry’s apartment itself felt even more alien than the lobby, more unfamiliar than the elevator. The room beyond his front door was sleek, modern, wide open with floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the shine of the city lights far below.

 

Shine nearly forgot about his questions the second he saw those windows, setting his violin case by the door and moving immediately past the thin couch and glass tables to take in the view.

 

“Holy shit,” he said, stopping himself short of pressing his hands to the glass. The whole of the city was laid out beneath him, bright lights blinking, and he couldn’t hear a single horn or siren. The sound of city streets was constant in the apartment he shared with his mother -- a neverending cacophony. “I’ve never been this high up.”

 

“You live in the city?” Harry asked from behind him, and Shine nodded, though he could tell by the sound of clinking glass that Harry was occupied, so he probably didn’t see.

 

“Queens, born and raised,” Shine said, and Harry chuckled.

 

“I should have guessed by the accent.”

 

Shine felt a presence at his shoulder and turned to see Harry standing there, closer than Shine realized. He had shed his coat, blazer and vest, and now wore only that crisp, white collared shirt, unbuttoned down to his collarbone, where little curls of black hair peeked out over his undershirt. Shine didn’t linger long on the sight, but moved his eyes to Harry’s hands, where he held twin glasses of some amber liquid.

 

“Brandy?” Harry offered, holding out one of them. Shine eyed the glass, a thousand indecisions passing through his mind in the span of a second. Technically he wasn’t legally allowed to drink until he turned 18 in April, but Harry obviously hadn’t considered that. Or he didn’t care.

 

But just as Shine reached for the glass, Harry seemed to hesitate, pulling it back a little. “How … how old are you, Shine?” Shine met his eyes, wondering what would happen -- or rather, what _wouldn’t_ happen -- if he told the truth.

 

“Twenty,” Shine lied, taking the glass without a moment’s more hesitation. At Harry’s look, he smiled. “I’ve always had a boyish face. Ma says its part of my charm.”

 

Harry’s resistance seemed to melt into relief, and he smiled. “You do have plenty of that,” he said, and Shine grinned, taking a sip of brandy -- the first he’d ever had. It took all his self-control not to wince at the taste, but he managed, forcing himself to retain his smile as he tried to push past the burn.

 

“It’s good,” he said, the second time tonight he’d lied to Harry, but Harry seemed pleased by both.

 

“My favorite, actually,” Harry said, taking a sip himself. They both turned their eyes back out the window for a moment, Shine trying to watch Harry’s reflection covertly. He looked contemplative, uncertain. Taking another long drink, Shine tried to pretend he wasn’t feeling that uncertainty himself.

 

“Do -- do you want to see the instruments?” Harry asked after a moment, and Shine gave him a smile in the window reflection, relieved.

 

“I didn’t just come here to drink,,” he replied cheekily, and Harry grinned, turning toward the hallway off the austere living room and nodding for Shine to follow.

 

They made their way into the narrow hallway, where three doors greeted them. Shine eyed the one at the far end, hoping Harry didn’t notice his gaze drift there immediately. Obviously, that would be Harry’s bedroom. For some reason, Shine was disappointed when, instead of leading him toward it, Harry opened the door closest to them.

 

But he was only disappointed for a moment. The second Harry flicked on the light, Shine felt his stomach drop into his feet, his eyes widening as if they could take in every inch of the room at once. Along one honey-colored wall, a variety of instruments hung in perfect symmetry -- a violin, a viola, a french horn, a flute, and three guitars -- two acoustic, one electric. Nudged up against the window was a grand piano, gleaming chestnut wood polished to a fine finish, its keys glinting. A sleek red couch and chestnut coffee table were set up nearby, as if for viewing a performance, and against the wall that wasn’t covered in instruments, shelves held books and sheet music and records all lined in perfect order, not a speck of dust to be found. Shine felt himself drawn into the room as if gravity were pulling him forward.

 

Behind him, Harry chuckled, and Shine heard his footfalls on the soft carpet as Harry approached.

 

“Holy shit,” Shine said again, setting his drink down on the coffee table, entirely unwilling to risk spilling it on anything. “You weren’t _kidding_. You a musician? I mean, for a living. Professional and all.” He turned around to meet Harry’s eyes and saw something proud and warm in them.

 

“A lawyer, actually,” Harry answered. “Never quite made it in music. But it’s always been …” he trailed off, coming to stand beside Shine, where his eyes drifted to the wall of instruments. “Well, it’s always been a passion,” he finally finished.

 

Shine moved closer to the wall, though he forced himself not to reach out and touch anything. The violin, especially, drew his eye, as it would draw anyone’s eye who had spent days flipping through magazines and catalogs, watching every recording he could find of every accomplished violinist in history. “You rich sunnovabitch,” Shine said, though there was no malice in it. “Issat a fucking goddamned Tomasso Balestrieri?”

 

Harry laughed and came to stand beside him. Shine watched, in awe, as Harry removed the instrument and its bow from the wall, holding it reverently. “You recognize it?” he asked. “I'm impressed. It was my great-grandmother’s.” He gave Shine a sideways kind of smile and set the instrument on his shoulder, leaning against it and running the bow along the strings. The single note rang out loudly in the little room, as if it were the only sound in the world, as if the air had been waiting to be filled by its music. Shine’s chest ached, and Harry nodded toward the couch.

 

“Sit down, if you’d like. I’ll -- I’ll play something for you.”

 

“Fuck, would you?” Shine asked, though the little light in Harry’s eyes clued him into the fact that Harry wanted nothing more in the world. So Shine did as he was told without a moment’s hesitation, taking a seat on the thin sofa and scooting to its edge.

 

As Shine watched, Harry laid the bow against the strings once more, took a deep breath, and began to play. The song that vibrated through the air felt at-odds with Harry’s composure, something lilting and spring-like, almost childish, a classical tune Shine didn’t know. But it was lovely -- as lovely as the little smile Harry wore. He had the most perfect teeth, straight and white, and the longer he played the wider that smile grew. Standing in such a way that showed his training, Harry gave off an air of poise and elegance; full, rich warmth. It made Shine nearly breathless.

 

In that moment, he knew that it was a mistake for Harry to bring him here. Shine’s shoes were ratty, his old striped polo shirt full of holes, and the way _he_ played -- well. He couldn’t imagine what Harry saw in it. Everything about Shine was messy, sloppy, and Harry and his music belonged to an entirely different life.

 

Harry finished the song with a long, warbling note, his smile fading as the last of the sound faded, a kind of contemplative silence overtaking him.

 

“You’re good,” Shine said with a grin, returning Harry’s earlier compliment and trying to cover his own sudden sense of displacement. Harry laughed, approaching a little awkwardly and settling down beside Shine on the couch. He laid the violin in his lap, but his eyes returned to Shine’s.

 

“I’d like to -- to hear you play it. If you want,” Harry said quietly. Shine nearly dropped his drink.

 

“You'd let me play your  _Balestrieri_?” Shine scooted away from him a little, facing him. “I can’t do that, big guy. When y’said you had instruments I thought --”

 

“I _want_ you to play it,” Harry interrupted. “Please.”

  
“Why?”

 

Their eyes met and locked, and something sad overtook Harry’s expression, making him look older. “I don’t care for popular music,” he admitted, and Shine tried not to look offended, “or disco, or rock and roll, or anything you play, really. But I keep -- I keep _watching_ you. Can’t seem to stop myself.” He let out a little, hollow laugh that Shine didn’t return, his whole body frozen. “I promise -- and I’m sure you know by now I find you, well, _handsome_ , but I promise this has nothing to do with how you look. I just enjoy the way you play. And no one has really breathed life to this old violin in years.”

 

“You just did,” Shine said, gesturing to the spot where Harry had just been standing. It was the only thing he knew to say.

 

“No,” Harry said, “I just played a song the way I’ve been playing it for decades. You … you do something else. When you play.”

 

Staring at him, Shine considered the thousand ways this could go horribly wrong. What if he was awful? What if he broke it? What if whatever grime on his hands ended up smudging the wood? There was no way he could afford any repairs or specialized cleaning, or ...

 

“Please play me something, Shine,” Harry said gently, lifting the violin and holding it out to him.

 

Shine swallowed, and he set down his drink. His heart hammering. What could he say to that but yes?

 

“Any requests?” Shine asked as he took hold of the Balestrieri -- an instrument that likely cost more than he could ever hope to make in a decade, or several. His mouth had gone dry.

 

“Your favorite song,” Harry said.

 

Shine’s eyes traced the elegant lines of the bouts, ran down the strings, considering. He only ever played high-energy music when he performed. Folks on the street wanted to smile, to dance, and something lively always got the money rolling in. But when he was home, playing along to the record player, he returned again and again to songs that were private, personal. This, here, felt private. Personal.

 

Setting up the violin against his chin, Shine began to play.

 

"Bridge Over Troubled Water," Simon & Garfunkel. The first time he heard this song, he was 11 years old, listening to the radio with his mother. It was days after she’d given him his violin. He had scrambled for it immediately, figuring out as the song played exactly which strings made exactly which sounds, so next time it came on he could play along with it. It was one of the first songs he had ever learned in its entirety.

 

Shine didn’t look at Harry while he played. He didn’t think he could without getting nervous. In this room, the sound echoed more intimate than it ever did out in the open air of parks or the crowded corridors of subway stations. It seemed to reverberate around him -- every note, ringing out clear as a bell and so much smoother than he thought possible. His own violin was old, third-hand at least. It functioned fine, but this was crafted by a master, and it felt reverent to touch it, to hear it, to hold it.

 

He felt himself smiling as the song went on, and words began to leave his lips, almost a whisper, a ghost of the tune. He was a much better violinist than he was a singer, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

 

“When you're down and out  
When you're on the street  
When evening falls so hard  
I will comfort you  
I'll take your part  
when darkness comes  
And pain is all around…”

 

A hand came to rest on Shine’s thigh and his eyes snapped open, fingers forgetting their rhythm, lips forgetting their lyrics, every atom of his body going still as he met Harry’s eyes and stopped playing in the middle of the music.

 

In the room’s warm light and the loud silence after song, Harry seemed somehow vulnerable. This big man in his fancy, 18th story apartment and his pressed, collared shirt, surrounded by luxuries Shine had always wanted -- and he was powerless.

 

They didn’t speak. Maybe they didn’t need to. Shine lowered the violin to his lap, Harry leaned forward, and when Harry’s hand came to Shine’s cheek he cupped it as gently as the chinrest of the Balestrieri, a comforting pressure guiding him close.

 

Shine closed his eyes just as their lips met; gentle, soft warm -- _restrained_. Hesitant. Heat rose inside him like a tide, swallowing him, the certainty that this was different from any other kiss he’d shared. It wasn’t the fumbling press of lips and clumsy clutching of clothes under teenage hands that didn’t know any better. This was a promise, restrained by choice rather than fear, a gentle plea for permission. Shine pressed forward, brought a hand to the back of Harry’s head, and granted it.

 

The body beside him seemed to melt in relief, and Harry scooted closer to him on the couch, bringing his other hand up so he was holding Shine’s face, thumbs grazing his cheeks. Harry licked along the seam of Shine’s lips, and Shine opened for him, welcoming him in, his free hand steadfast on the instrument in his lap.

 

Kissing he could do. He’d kissed plenty of people. It was what came after kissing that frightened him. Hands, lips, tongue, all instruments he’d only just begunto practice with, but Harry’s hand was strong and sure as it roamed down his neck, his chest. Harry’s tongue was deep and insistent as it brushed against Shine’s own. And Shine knew that Harry wanted something from him that Shine had yet to give anyone.

 

Shine pulled back, licked his lips and put a hand on Harry’s chest to push him away a little. They both caught their breath for a second, Shine’s eyes still closed. Silently, he shifted, placed the Balestrieri on the coffee table, trying to collect himself.

 

The sound of Harry’s inconsistent breath was all Shine could focus on, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at him. “I’ve nev--”

 

“I’m sor--”

 

They both stopped, and Shine finally met Harry’s eyes again. The fear was back. “If I misread anything--” Harry began, but Shine brought a hand to Harry’s thigh to soothe him, curling his fingers against the smooth, expensive fabric of his slacks.

 

“You didn’t,” Shine managed to say. “Thing is I’ve never, ah -- y’see I’ve done plenty of --” he paused, stopping himself from making any vulgar hand gestures. Was there a polite way to say the most he’d done with a man was trading rushed handjobs in the supply closet with the high school linebacker? “I’ve mostly ah, been with women. You know?” This was only partly true. He’d been with girls his own age, but hadn’t yet had _sex_ with anyone. Of _any_ gender. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Harry that, though.

 

Harry straightened. “Do you … _want_ this, though?”

 

It took Shine a moment to answer. Of course, he _knew_ his answer. It was yes, emphatically. He’d been fantasizing about big men with hairy chests holding him down and fucking him since he’d found that underground porn store in the alley off Times Square. And he would’ve been happy for the linebacker to do it if that’s what the linebacker wanted, but here was a man -- a _man_ \-- who wanted to fuck him, or to _be_ fucked, or god, maybe both.

 

“Yeah,” he finally said. “But all I’m sayin is you gotta tell me what to do.”

 

Harry’s chest seemed to hollow of breath, and he nodded wordlessly. It seemed to take him a second to collect himself. “Yes,” he said, “of course, I mean. Happily.” And Shine realized that Harry might have been even more nervous than he was.

 

Shine couldn’t help his nature -- his first instinct was always to do away with someone’s nerves.

 

“But if you wanted to, ah, kiss me again first,” Shine said, shifting to face Harry a little better. “I think we’ve both got that down pretty good.”

 

With a little, breathy sigh of a laugh, Harry brought his hand back to Shine’s cheek. “It does seem like a good place to start,” he said, and returned his lips to Shine’s. Shine melted against him, both hands free now to roam up Harry’s chest, explore the folds of his shirt, graze against the skin of his neck. He felt himself smiling into their kiss, delighted by the scratch of stubble against his jaw, the warm hands coming around his back and slipping under his shirt -- Harry holding him as reverently as he’d held that violin.

 

Under the gentle warmth of those hands, Shine began to think that, maybe, he wasn’t so out of place here after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop myself, so here's the rest of Shine and Harry's story. :')
> 
> This begins literally two hours after that first chapter, in case that's not clear in text.

The bed cradled Shine’s body as if he’d always been meant to sink into it, as if every moment of his life had led to this -- the blinking city lights out the window, the dark room, smelling vaguely of expensive cologne, and this  _ feeling _ . He felt boneless, weightless and heavy all at the same time, and though it might have been due to that warm hum of afterglow and the pleasant ache of exertion that spread through every muscle of his body, he was more inclined to blame the bed. It was certainly the nicest mattress he’d ever laid on.

 

And the company wasn’t so bad, either.

 

An arm wrapped around him from behind, and lips came to the back of his neck, kissing along his spine. Harry pulled himself close under the covers, and Shine snuggled back against him. He shouldn’t have, though. He should’ve pulled out of Harry’s arms, made his way home. By now he should be sitting at the kitchen table, counting up his earnings for the day, cooking a late dinner so it was ready when his ma got off work. He’d been all but ready to pack up when Harry approached him in that subway station, and they’d been here at Harry’s apartment now for hours. “Y’know if you keep holdin’ me I might just fall asleep here,” Shine warned lazily, tilting his face into the plush pillow. 

 

“I’d like that,” Harry said softly against Shine’s skin, his breath making Shine shiver. “But the night’s still young.”

 

“Give a guy a minute to recover,” Shine mumbled, though he felt fit to press back against Harry suggestively all the same. He wouldn’t be opposed to going at it again later, but he hadn’t even come down from his high yet. “I thought old men like you weren’t supposed to have stamina.”

 

Of course, Harry had already proven his stamina plenty. They’d been in bed nearly two hours by now, and Harry had spent every moment of that running worshipful kisses over Shine’s body, opening him with careful, gentle fingers, teasing him to the edge before finally giving Shine what he came here for. And he’d  _ given _ it to him. Shine had a feeling he’d be sore tomorrow, but it didn’t hurt beyond a pale ache now. Harry had taken good care of him.

 

Harry’s lips smiled against Shine’s skin. “I wasn’t suggesting sex,” Harry said with a little laugh. “At least, not right now. I believe I promised you music lessons, if you wanted to play for a while.”

 

Shine’s eyes snapped open and he rolled over in Harry’s arms, giving him an incredulous look. “Wait, you was  _ serious _ ? I thought that was just you trying to get me to come over.”

 

Harry’s bright brown eyes glinted, wrinkles at their corners crinkling as he smiled. “In part,” he admitted. “But you saw my music room. Anything you want to try, you’re welcome to.”

 

“Why?” Shine wasn’t going to apologize for his suspicion. A well-to-do lawyer with a high-rise apartment could only be after one thing from some horny kid from Queens like Shine. Harry had gotten that one thing _ enthusiastically _ , and he could have it again whenever he wanted it, as far as Shine was concerned. So what would he get out of giving Shine  _ music  _ lessons?

 

“I told you,” Harry said, finding Shine’s hand under the blankets, “I love watching you play music. I didn’t just hang around that station for laughs all these months.”

 

“And you sure it ain’t just my pretty face?” Shine asked, though he was joking. “You can tell me if it is, you know. I got a  _ real _ pretty face.”

 

“I’m not arguing that,” Harry said with a chuckle, leaning in and laying a kiss to Shine’s cheek, then one to his jaw, down to his neck. “And, if I  _ must _ admit to my ulterior motives, I do think you’d look especially handsome holding a guitar. Especially if you neglect to get dressed first.”

 

Shine shoved Harry’s shoulder, laughing. “Well then fuck you, go grab it. I can’t say no to  _ that _ .” 

 

Harry pulled away, grinning. “So you’ll stay tonight?” 

 

Shine’s smile faded slightly, and though his back was turned to the clock on Harry’s bedside table he had a feeling the hour had edged well past 9 p.m. now. But Harry was smiling at him, something hopeful in his expression, and Shine  _ wanted _ to stay. They could play music together, return to bed when they felt like it. Harry had  _ plenty _ he could teach Shine, and a few more hours indulging in that education wouldn’t hurt.

 

“Yeah,” Shine said, reaching up to rest a hand on Harry’s cheek. “Alright, big guy, I’ll stay. I'm all yours.”

 

And from that moment on, he was.

 

* * *

 

The money was still good, getting better day-by-day, in fact, but that wasn’t why Shine began to anticipate his evening rush-hour performances.

 

He’d enter the subway station with a buzz in his veins, nervous energy he could only ever expunge through music, and he’d play for a seemingly endless stretch of empty minutes before he caught those now-familiar brown eyes through the crowd.

 

Harry never rushed him; never tried to cut Shine’s set short. He’d just watch and listen as he always did. The only difference, then, was what happened after. He’d approach as Shine was packing up, hand him a dollar or two -- still gentlemanly enough to tip for the show -- then hold out his arm for Shine to lead the way up the stairs and out the station.

 

Shine soon learned the route to Harry’s apartment so well he could walk it with his eyes closed. It wasn’t every night -- Harry didn’t work weekends, after all, and there were some nights he worked too late to catch the subway home -- but it was damn near most of them. They’d order dinner, play music, watch TV, laugh, drink and fuck -- oh they would  _ fuck _ \-- and Shine would fall asleep in Harry’s bed. Wake up in Harry’s arms. Sometimes he stayed for breakfast if he was particularly exhausted, but he tried to sneak out earlier, if only so his mom coming off the night shift wouldn’t know he had been gone all night. 

 

It became harder and harder to force himself to leave early. He didn’t know if Harry’s arms were getting heavier around him, or if the warm comfort of Harry’s fancy apartment was just too hard to leave when the air began to chill with the onset of winter. But somewhere in his mind he probably knew, from the beginning, that it was just Harry. 

 

_ Harry  _ was hard to leave.

 

Shine couldn’t remember all the lies he told his mother in those first weeks. He ran into friends, he would say, or he accidentally fell asleep at the station or at the park, or he found a bar that let him play there through closing. She suspected something, of course, but she had always let Shine go his own way. It was one thing he valued about her.

 

But even Shine couldn’t hide what was going on for long. He wanted to talk about Harry, wanted to see him all the time. Sometimes he’d go busking in Harry’s neighborhood on weekends just in case he could catch sight of him on the way to the deli or coming back from the dry-cleaner. He never did, but even knowing he was close to Harry made him happy.

 

Shine didn’t think he’d _ ever _ been this happy.

 

* * *

 

Shine readjusted himself on the barstool at the counter of Harry’s kitchenette, trying to turn to look at Harry even as he dug with graceless chopsticks into the Chinese takeout container he held. There was no way he was going to leave the kitchen with his meal and risk getting szechuan sauce on Harry’s immaculate carpet, but Harry stood all the way across the room by the living room window, staring out over the city, and Shine wanted to see his face.

 

“She won’t tell anyone,” Shine promised after Harry was silent too long. As Shine slurped a rubbery onion between his lips, Harry glanced over at him, then turned his eyes back to the view. The expression on Harry’s face was as grim as if he were in mourning -- not the way Shine expected him to react to the news of Shine’s accidental (and blessedly limited, and blessedly accepted) coming out.

 

“I trust you,” Harry said quietly. “But did you  _ have _ to tell her?”

 

Shine stared at him for a moment, then set down his takeout with a sigh. He was starving -- these meals with Harry were the most substantial he ever got -- but some things were more important than filling his belly. 

 

Wiping his lips on his napkin, he hopped down from the stool and headed into the living room, bare toes curling with subconscious delight into that plush carpet. Outside, tiny half-formed snowflakes were drifting past the windows. They’d melt long before they hit the asphalt down below, but they heralded the oncoming winter.

 

“What was I supposed to do, huh?” Shine said, and Harry looked back to him, something pained in his expression. “You try lying to your own ma when she sits you at the kitchen table an’ asks you the name of the guy you’re seein’. Woulda been way worse if I lied, trust me. She won’t tell anyone. My aunts Betsy and Maria are a couple and no one knows who doesn’t gotta.”

 

Harry’s lips ticked in a humorless smile. “Well now  _ I _ know,” he said, and Shine whapped him on the shoulder.

 

“Oh shut it,” he said, with a little laugh. “You ain’t gonna go rat out a coupla biker dykes. Just like I know my ma ain’t gonna snitch on you.”

 

Searching Shine’s eyes, Harry didn’t speak for a moment. Rather, he lifted a hand to Shine’s face and rubbed something, maybe a spot of sauce, from the corner of his mouth with a gentle thumb. “And she was  _ really _ alright with it? Even my, well, my  _ age _ ?” Harry asked, his hand falling to his side.

 

Shine couldn’t help smiling. He loved the static and the pressure of Harry’s touch, even in those tiny domestic little moments. Especially in those moments. “She’s fine with me fuckin’ whoever I want as long as I’m safe,” Shine assured him. He lowered his voice into a silly caricature of seduction. “So ‘course I  _ didn’t _ tell her how dangerous you are.” He reached out to take Harry’s hand, pulling him around to face him, though Harry turned his head to hide his smile. “How big…” He flung an arm over Harry’s shoulder. “How you snatched me off the street …” Fingers lacing into Harry’s, Shine pulled their bodies close. “How you corrupted me with your chest hair and devil’s music...” Shine lost his seductive purr there, and Harry laughed, finally meeting Shine’s eyes again. Shine loved his eyes when they were crinkled at their corners. “My big man,” Shine practically cooed, free hand curling into Harry’s hair. “My big, scary, dangerous man.”

 

“Alright, alright,” Harry said, his own hand coming to rest on Shine’s waist, pulling him in tight. “Please stop.”

 

He leaned in, then, lips meeting Shine’s in a soft press, what would’ve been a kiss to quiet him if Shine had any desire to keep talking. No, what he wanted now was  _ this _ \-- Harry’s arm curling around his back, his lips warm and soft. Shine wanted to eat dinner with him, watch him play piano for a little while, and then head to bed happy and light-headed with brandy, where they’d nudge sleeves down each other’s shoulders and run their lips over each other’s bare skin. 

 

He wanted  _ this. _

 

Harry pulled away, breathing against Shine’s lips. “Just please promise me you won’t tell anyone else,” he whispered.

 

Something cold settled in Shine’s gut, chasing away that playful buzz of delight. “Sure, big guy,” he said quietly. “I won’t tell no one else.”

 

“It’s not anything against you.” Harry pulled back. It seemed he was trying for a reassuring tone, though it came out more nervous than anything. “I have …” he paused, sighed, looked deep into Shine’s eyes. “I have a lot to lose.”

 

“Right. A lot more’n I do,” Shine said, and he couldn't -- or didn’t bother to -- mask the slight resentment in his voice as he pulled out of Harry’s arms. 

 

“Shine,” Harry started, coming forward as Shine turned away, moving back into the kitchen. “I didn’t mean --”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Shine said. “You do got a lot to lose.” He settled back onto the stool and grabbed his takeout again, poking at pink curls of shrimp with his chopsticks. “You got your job, your  _ politics _ , your fancy friends.”

 

“My family,” Harry put in, and Shine looked up to him. Harry was standing somewhat frozen in the living room, as if afraid to step any closer. “Not -- not every family is like yours, Shine.”

 

No, Shine supposed. They weren’t. Not every family was a young unmarried woman and her lesbian best friends, raising a kid on the streets of New York City. Not every family huddled and shivered for years before finding a hole in the wall they could afford to call their own. No, some families lived in nice suburban houses behind picket fences and raised strong boys who grew up to be lawyers.

 

“What would your family do, if they knew?” Shine asked then, because it was easy to forget that a life of privilege didn’t always equate to a life of comfort. 

 

Face darkening, Harry looked away, eyes losing their focus somewhere on the floor. The silence before he spoke seemed to last forever. “My father made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t tolerate a queer in the family. He wouldn’t -- wouldn’t tolerate a queer anywhere.” He lifted his eyes once more, and Shine saw something swimming in them. All of Shine’s frost left him, any resentment, any bitterness fading with a rush of sympathy that nearly knocked the breath from his lungs. “I don’t know for sure that he would kill me,” Harry said quietly, “but he promised to. Back then, when they were all calling me ‘fairy Harry.’ He promised to. I can’t let them find out about me. You understand, don't you?”

 

For a moment, they simply regarded each other. Shine didn’t know what to say, how to respond. He never had a father to threaten him, to force him into any molds he didn’t fit. He only ever had a mother who had run away from her own oppressive life. Why would she pin her son down? But even though he couldn’t imagine the anger that would cause a man to threaten his own child, he found even the prospect was enough to send ice through his veins.

 

Shine put the takeout box back on the counter, his appetite gone, and stood once more, meeting Harry in the living room. When he reached out, took Harry’s hand, Harry looked at the touch as though their laced fingers were the only thing that existed in the world.

 

And Shine smiled. It was all he knew to do when things got bad. “C’mon,” he said, tugging toward Harry’s own untouched dinner. “You’ll feel better with some food in your belly, alright?”

 

Mollified, it seemed, by Shine’s smile, Harry allowed Shine to pull him into the kitchen, but Shine could feel Harry’s pulse still racing where their wrists pressed together.

 

It wasn’t in Shine’s nature to be careful. The fact he’d gone home with a stranger the first night he and Harry had met was proof enough of that. But it wasn’t just him on the line anymore. It was Harry. And Shine might be willing to risk life and limb to get fucked the way he’d been getting fucked, but life and limb was all Shine had.

 

Harry had more. Harry had potential -- more potential at age 37 than Shine had at 17 -- and Shine would protect that potential. If he could. He owed Harry that much. 

 

* * *

 

Winter blew in with torrential snow and a chill that seemed to freeze every atom of the air. Shine’s job got harder as the months wore on. Sure, he still ducked the worst of the elements in subway stations, but gone were those carefree Saturdays in the parks, where he could spend hours in the sun making money and playing his music.

 

But there were benefits to winter. His mom got a bonus at both of her jobs for the holiday season, and they managed to cobble together enough to splurge on some genuine warm meals for Hanukkah, and a new yarmulke for Shine -- purple with gold braid. It wasn’t often they could afford new things, so it felt like a treat.

 

Then, of course, there was Harry. Winter with Harry was, in a word, idyllic. Before the weather turned, Shine had been restless in Harry’s apartment, trying to cajole him into going out to eat or going to a club or a bar, anything to be out and about and around people. But with the gray skies and changing season, Shine became content lying on Harry’s chest on his couch, watching terrible holiday specials on his color TV, or holed up under the covers with the heat of their bodies to keep them warm.

 

If Shine felt bad for his mother in their drafty apartment across the city, the guilt didn’t last long. He was pleasantly distracted, after all, and saving money on meals by eating poor Harry out of house and home. Besides, Wanda hadn’t ever gotten much alone time, working as much as she did. He assuaged some of his worries by reminding himself that he was there when it mattered, and that was all he needed to be. There for the holidays, the “family” gatherings with Betsy and Maria. 

 

But he would not be there on Christmas.

 

Harry didn’t have to go to work on Christmas day, which he had been sure to tell Shine plenty far in advance. Not to mention (though of course, Harry did) Harry’s family was back in Indiana, so he’d be spending the holiday alone. Given the way he’d delivered the news, all big dark eyes and wandering fingertips tracing lazy patterns on Shine’s hip, Shine hadn’t had to stretch very far to assume Harry wanted to spend the day with him.

 

Christmas meant less than nothing to Shine (excepting, of course that he enjoyed the blinking lights they strung up all over the city) so he agreed to come over, spend the whole day just the two of them. They’d never done that before. Even on Saturdays, Harry’s rare day off without work or church or extraneous obligations, Shine always had to leave early. He couldn’t stay and fuck the day away without losing out on his best money of the week in Central Park in the fall.

 

So, well, Shine didn’t really blame Harry his excitement when Shine arrived at his apartment bright and early on Christmas morning. Nor could he really blame Harry his enthusiastic gifts. The first present Harry gave him: shoving Shine up against the door, getting to his knees and sucking him off before Shine had even taken of his shoes. The second: carrying him boneless into the bedroom and fucking him slow and sweet until Shine came  _ again _ , then moving in and out of him with a languid, teasing rhythm, whispering promises in Shine’s ear that they had all day, and there was plenty more where that came from.

 

Harry often complained that he wasn’t as young as he used to be, usually when Shine climbed on top of him for round two when they’d already stayed up far too late for Harry’s schedule, but he wasn’t showing his age today. And Shine was breathless with giggling and light-headed with afterglow by the time Harry curled his arm around Shine’s shoulder in the warm silver glow of winter morning -- finally satiated. Not that Shine was complaining.

 

“Merry Christmas,” Harry whispered against the crown of Shine’s head. Shine was laying on Harry’s chest, eyes closed, tugging absently at curls of Harry’s chest hair while he rose and fell gently with Harry’s breath. “I forgot to say it earlier.”

 

“You got a little distracted,” Shine said in forgiveness, and chuckled against Harry’s skin. “And it don’t matter to me anyway.”

 

“Not much for holidays?”

 

“I’m real big into holidays,” Shine protested. “Just Jewish, you goon.” Harry pulled back, and Shine looked up into his eyes, grinning. “What, you didn’t guess by the last name? I dare you find one Trzebinski that ain’t Jewish.”

 

With a little huff of a laugh, Harry laid his head back on the bed. “I never really thought about it,” he said. “I should apologize.”

 

Shine plucked pointedly at a strand of hair. “Naw, it’s casual. ‘Sides, if your idea of a Christmas present is a good fuck, well -- I wouldn’t expect you to give me presents like  _ this _ eight days in a row. The Hebrews weren’t talkin’ lube when they said the oil lasted that long.”

 

The chest under Shine’s cheek rumbled with a laugh, and Harry nuzzled into Shine’s hair. “The sex wasn’t your present,” he said, and Shine shot up, nearly hitting Harry in the nose. 

 

“You mean you got me a present? A real one? Honest to god?”

 

“I did,” Harry said, smiling. “But, well, now I know you don’t celebrate --”

 

“I can celebrate for this. Happy Jesus day and all. What’d you get me?”

 

Grinning widely, Harry sat up, and brushed Shine’s hair back from his face. When he leaned in for a small kiss, Shine returned it, if a little impatiently. “Stay here,” Harry said when they parted, and he threw the covers off, standing and heading toward the hallway. Shine watched him walk away, noting with some appreciation the pink streaks his clenched fingers had left on Harry’s back. It was nice to feel like he owned a little piece of Harry. And he might act the petulant child awaiting his gift, but Harry himself would’ve been present enough. 

 

After a moment, Harry’s voice called out from the hallway: “Close your eyes,” and Shine rolled them instead.

 

“Why?” he called back. “It ain’t gonna be a surprise in five seconds.”

 

“Shine,” Harry said, and Shine sighed, reluctantly acquiescing as he scooched to the edge of the bed.

 

“Alright alright, you win. Now get over here.”

 

He held out his two hands cupped, like a beggar, and heard Harry approaching. “It won’t fit in your hands,” Harry said, much closer now, and Shine smiled. 

 

“Aw,” Shine said, dropping his hands with a little flop. “An here I thought my big man might get me jewelry. Maybe a pair of sexy panties?”

 

“Would --” Harry paused. “Is that something you would want?”

 

“I’m kidding, big guy,” Shine said, as if it weren’t obvious. “Can I open my eyes? I’m gettin’ antsy.”

 

There was a careful shuffle, and Shine held his breath.

 

“Alright, now,” Harry said. 

 

Shine’s eyes snapped open, and his jaw dropped when he saw what Harry held. 

 

Tilted to catch the morning light, the polished wood of the guitar gleamed, little stripes of faux-gold inlay curling at every curve of its body. The same gold, accented by mother of pearl, glinted at each fret, and Shine could swear he heard a chorus of angels the moment he truly digested the sight of it.

 

“It’s a guitar,” he said numbly.

 

Harry -- who, even naked as he was, Shine had almost completely forgotten was even there -- laughed. “It is,” he said. “You only ever get to play when you’re here and, well, I thought it might be nice for you to have a guitar at home. Something to practice on.”

 

Shine held out his hands and Harry delivered the guitar into his arms like the angels delivered the baby Jesus to Mary -- or something, however the story went. But Shine held it like it was a precious, holy thing anyway, setting it on his thigh and moving his fingers up and down the fretboard. 

 

Coming to settle beside him on the edge of the bed, Harry wore an expression of childlike joy, as if  _ he _ had been the one to receive the gift. “Do you like it?”

 

Shine  _ loved _ it. He ran his hand along its smooth curves like he would touch a lover. Like he touched Harry. Plucking each individual string, he found it perfectly in tune, and it felt solid in his hands. He thought with a flash of shameful excitement that he could sell this guitar for a few hundred dollars, easy, and he and his ma would eat well for months. But Harry hadn't given it to him to sell. He gave it to him to play. At home, on the streets, in seedy bars… 

 

“I can’t take this, big guy,” Shine said, the words choking in his throat, only realizing it was true as he said it. 

 

“What?” Harry asked, his smile falling.

 

“It’s -- listen it ain’t nothin’ against you,” Shine said, forcing himself to take the guitar by the neck and set it off to the side, leaning it up against the bedside table. “It’s just too nice is all.”

 

“Too nice?” Harry asked, sounding dumbfounded. 

 

Shine met his eyes. “You ain’t never lived where I live. My ma and me got robbed last year. Took everything we had. We still ain’t been able to replace the radio. Two years before that, same thing. I started keepin’ my records under the floorboards, just in case. If someone saw me on the street with this thing, you think they’d stop short a shooting me for it?”

 

“But--”

 

Shine laid a hand on Harry’s thigh and scooted closer, trying to hold his gaze. “I wish I could take it. I really do. It’s the most beautiful thing I ever seen. But it ain’t right for me.”

 

Harry glanced down to the guitar, and Shine watched his eyes trace its form, the shine of it glinting in their reflection. “Well,” Harry said. “That’s twice now I’ve made a wrong assumption just today. I apologize, Shine. I wasn’t thinking.”

 

Of course, he wasn’t thinking, Shine mused silently, and he was surprised to realize a twinge of bitterness in him. In honesty, this beautiful instrument was probably a few steps down in price and quality from the guitars hanging on Harry’s wall right now, so Harry likely couldn't imagine giving Shine anything less. And Shine could only assume Harry’s property had never been violated, or even threatened, the way Shine’s had. 

 

“I’m not mad, if you wanna know,” Shine said. “Gotta get me a nicer present than this to piss me off. Now you try givin’ me a car or, hey, that violin you got hanging in there, and you're as good as dead.” Harry snorted in spite of himself, and Shine smiled, glad Harry recognized that as a joke. These bougie types could be sensitive. 

 

“What if --” Harry paused, and for a moment it looked as though he was searching himself. “What if you kept it here? I know the spirit of the thing is a little ruined now, but … you could still use it.”

 

“You don’t wanna take it back to the shop?”

 

Harry waved away the thought with a careless hand. “No,” he said. “I bought it for you. I’d like you to play it sometimes, even just here with me.”

 

Shine felt something warm spreading through his chest -- a surprise wave of Christmas cheer. Shine had only recently started keeping a toothbrush here, and even that was just a clean spare Harry happened to have lying around. Having something to call his own in Harry’s home felt monumental. Like this could last. 

 

He glanced back to the guitar, heart aching at the beauty of it. He’d look wonderful with it onstage somewhere, the shine of lights coloring it effervescent. But here --

 

Reaching for it, Shine pulled the instrument back into his lap and arranged his fingers. “Any requests?” Shine asked, as he always did when he wanted to make Harry happy, and when he met Harry’s eyes Harry was smiling again.

 

“Don’t suppose you know ‘Jingle Bells?’” 

 

Shine snorted, shoving Harry away by the shoulder as Harry laughed and fell back onto the bed. “Just for that,” Shine said, settling the guitar more purposefully on his thigh, “I’m gonna play you The Dreidel Song ‘til it’s stuck in your head for weeks.”

 

“I can’t wait,” Harry replied, settling himself up on his elbows. And, for the life of him, it looked like he really couldn’t. Shine’s heart beat hard against his chest, and he looked away, knowing Harry could see right through his smile. 

 

* * *

 

Shine always went to Times Square for New Year’s Eve. He’d track down some friends, watch the ball drop from the street, find some fire escape where they could perch and get high and watch the crowd.

 

But this year, he watched the ball drop with Harry from the comfort of Harry’s couch. At midnight, Harry popped a bottle of champagne, and Shine pulled him in for a kiss as the bottle fizzed and spilled all over Harry’s hand. They pulled away laughing, and though Shine missed the crowds and the noise and especially the dope, he could admit this was the best way he’d ever rung in the new year. 1977 -- and it was going to be a whole new life for him.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when Harry was sleeping and Shine felt that familiar, restless pull of energy, Shine would crawl out of bed, sneak softly across the carpet and push open the door to Harry’s music room.

 

Sometimes, he’d pull the violin from the wall. The precious, ancient violin that he was so afraid to touch, let alone play, no matter how desperately he wanted to. But sometimes, if he felt bold, he’d close the door and run the bow over the strings, a tuneless exploration of its powerful sound. He’d never play a full song -- couldn’t bring himself to. But he wanted to know this violin inside and out, wanted to feel it hum under his fingertips, wanted to feel its smooth wood under his hands.

 

Sometimes, he could swear he heard footsteps on the other side of the door, pausing to listen. Still, without fail, whenever he put the instrument away and tip-toed back to bed, Harry would be there as asleep as he’d been when Shine left him. But his hand would reach out as Shine crawled under the covers, and his eyes would sometimes crack open and reflect the moonlight glinting off the snow far below, and he would smile like he knew. Like he loved Shine just a little more for it.

 

* * *

 

Shine stuffed his hands hard into his pockets, trying to fight off the chill as he stalked down the street. Luckily, moving fast among a press of other bodies in the evening Manhattan crowd kept his blood pumping hot, but that might have been more a result of the wildfire fury raging through him.

 

“Shine,” a voice hissed from behind him as if trying not to draw attention, but Shine just walked faster in response. Harry  _ never _ wanted to draw attention. He was so damn careful. So fucking careful all the fucking time. “Shine, just wait.”

 

Teeth clenched, Shine glanced over his shoulder where Harry was trying to keep up with him. It was dark already -- the days never lasted long this time of year -- but he hoped in the streetlight glow Harry could still see Shine’s scowl.

 

“No,” Shine said simply as he turned ahead again. But Harry finally reached out as if it were his last resort, taking Shine by the elbow to slow him. Shine could’ve shaken him off. Harry was big, but he was gentle, and he would have let Shine go.

 

But maybe there was a part of Shine that wanted to give Harry a piece of his mind. 

 

So he slowed down, allowed Harry to turn him, to tug him off to the side of the walkway out of the crowd and the lights. Harry tucked them up against a polished granite hotel edifice, just out of view of its windows, and Shine watched Harry catch his breath.  _ Shine _ was fine -- used to walking, running, fighting crowds. He was used to a lot of things Harry wasn’t.

 

“Shine, I’m sorry,” Harry said quietly, glancing around at the evening passersby who couldn’t have given less of a shit about them. “But you have to understand --”

 

“I’m sick of understanding,” Shine nearly spat. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You wouldn’t even take me to the movies in case anyone saw you. In a  _ dark theater. _ In  _ Staten Island _ . Who do you even know in fucking Staten Island? And, you know, I let it go cause you was real worried about it. But I thought if it was somethin’ important like my own fucking concert -- ”

 

“I’d stick out like a sore thumb in that crowd,” Harry said, gesturing to his dry-cleaned coat and pinstripe vest and -- well, everything about him.

 

“Dress down,” Shine said. “This ain’t brain surgery, you know. It’s a bar in Queens where your boyfriend --”

 

“Shine,” Harry warned, trying to temper Shine’s volume with a gentle gesture of his hand. It took every ounce of Shine’s self-control not to turn to the street at large and scream their shared indecencies for everyone to hear. 

 

“Where _ your boyfriend _ ,” Shine continued in a low snarl, “is gonna be playing his first solo show. And you ain’t even gonna try to come.” He wished those last words sounded more angry than hurt.

 

“I’ve been on the news almost every week since trying this corruption case. People  _ recognize _ me,” Harry said quickly, eyes flicking toward the passersby as if to be sure no one had so far. But they were in the shadow outside the streetlights, and they could’ve been anyone. Besides, it would be weirder to see two people  _ not _ arguing on the sidewalk in this city. “What if someone recognized me there? What would I tell them?”

 

“Anything,” Shine said, tossing his hands. “You heard the music from the street or something --”

  
“In Queens? What would someone like me be doing near Queens Plaza at 9 on a Saturday?”

 

“Right,” Shine spat. “‘Cause you’d never be caught dead nowhere that low. In case you forgot, big shot, I  _ live  _ near there. I grew up in Maspeth. So fuck you if you think it ain't good enough. And fuck you twice if you think…” Shine felt some awful bile rising his his throat as his voice lost its strength. “If you think  _ I _ ain't good enough.” 

 

Harry’s eyes gleamed in secondhand light from the street lamp, entreating, scared, maybe sorry, but he didn't say anything. Why wasn't he saying anything?

 

Expression souring once again, Shine tossed a dismissive hand at Harry and spun around on his heel. “Forget about it,” he snapped, making his way back into the crowd. “And don’t you fucking follow me this time!”

 

Fuming, he tugged the pack of cigarettes and box of matches from his pocket and lit one up, the cold air biting at his fingertips, the flame of his match the only spot of warmth as it charred his cigarette to an ember.

 

He didn't look back.

 

* * *

 

From the stage, the audience blurred together into one solid, black mass, except those seated at the nearest tables. But Shine kept a careful eye on their faces at least, just to gauge the crowd. He was good at gauging the crowd. Folks all over the bar were holding loud conversations and too few applauded after each song, but some were listening, and all were  _ hearing _ , and that’s all that Shine wanted. Someone to hear him.

 

The proprietor had said he could play some of his original songs as long as he peppered in the rock and roll covers he’d become somewhat known for around here. And Shine was happy to comply. Whenever someone lit up and started singing along to a song they recognized it almost felt --

 

For those brief, fleeting moments, it almost felt like he was the frontman of a band. Onstage at CBGB or The Loft. Somewhere folks went to see people with real talent.

 

But that wasn’t where he was. He was in a bar in Queens that didn’t even have a name (just “BAR” in loops of pink neon on the sign outside), but it had patrons. It had people. And his name was on a ratty poster someone had pasted on the door announcing the week’s live music.  _ His _ name.

 

Ma couldn’t make it, though Shine had begged her to come. She worked that night. But the audience wasn’t lacking in support. Trudy and Agnes and Marco and Rhonda were here -- some of his street friends -- sitting right in front of the stage with a couple of buskers he knew from the circuit. Trudy and Marco were both giving Shine looks he’d become pretty familiar with, the kind of looks he would’ve indulged in at one point in his life. He was pretty sure they’d only come tonight hoping Shine might go home with one of them, get high and fool around like they used to do.

 

Of course, Shine wouldn’t. Harry might’ve been a selfish asshole about this whole thing, but Shine didn’t want to go home with anyone but him. Didn’t want to look sideways at anyone but him. Meaning he’d be heading home alone tonight, and Marco and Trudy would both be leaving disappointed.

 

But, well, at least they  _ had _ come.

 

When the lights came up at the end of his performance and Shine took a bow, he scanned the bar for reactions. Folks were clapping, for the most part. A grizzly old guy in the back corner was giving him a standing O, swaying on his feet, but most were carrying on their conversations, clapping quietly under their tables out of habit more than enjoyment.

 

But Shine didn’t have time to nurse any disappointment about that. Because past the tables at the bar, his eyes settled on a man in a baseball cap, perched alone on a stool. His perfect, white-toothed grin was as familiar as it was welcome. He wasn’t clapping, himself, but he didn’t have to for Shine to know how he felt. 

 

Shine beamed, but stopped himself just short of waving.

 

Harry.

 

After quickly setting his violin back into its case and tucking it behind one of the speakers on stage, Shine hopped down to accept hugs from his friends. Trudy’s hands lingered a little too long on his back, and Marco whispered something Shine couldn’t hear in his ear, but Shine extracted himself quickly, offering some apologies and pretending (rather well, if he did say so himself) that he hadn’t noticed their intentions.

 

“Wait here,” he called to the group of them. “I’ll be back.” And then it was just moments before he struggled through the tight tables over to the bar, where Harry sat nursing a drink. He  _ was _ dressed down -- some old jacket over his shoulders, a tattered T-shirt that could’ve been second-hand poking out over the collar. 

 

Harry lowered his drink to the bar as Shine came toward him, then hopped off his stool. “Shine,” he said, but Shine didn’t answer before his arms were around Harry’s neck and he was hugging him, holding him as tight as he could for as long as he could without drawing any looks. When he pulled away, Harry looked a little surprised.

 

“You came,” Shine said. “Change your tune?”

 

“I admit I was being a little paranoid,” Harry said, glancing down to Shine’s hand as if all he wanted in the world was to take it. “And I wanted to see you play. I really did.”  

 

Before Shine could speak, Harry cleared his throat, nodding toward the stage. “Friends of yours?” He asked, and Shine turned to see the group of them talking, trading suspicious looks in his direction. Per Harry’s request, Shine hadn’t told anyone, even his friends, about their relationship. He almost wished he could hear whatever wild theories they were coming up with right now. What Shine was doing with this secretive older man. Odds are their guesses would be right. 

 

“Yeah,” Shine said. “We was gonna hang out and have a drink, since I didn’t think you’d be coming. Now you’re here, I can ditch ‘em if you wanna go home and congratulate me on a good show.” He nudged Harry suggestively, though the suggestion didn't seem to land. 

 

“It  _ was _ a good show,” Harry said sweetly, and he seemed to stop himself reaching out, his hand flexing at his side. “A great show. You’ve got everyone here enchanted.”

 

Shine looked around, eyebrows raised. “If you’re talkin Trudy and Marco, I always got them enchanted. They thought I was hot shit when I was 14 and playin’ The Beatles. They don’t count.”

 

Harry laughed, though there was something deep behind his eyes Shine couldn’t decipher. “No, I mean  _ everyone _ . Maybe you couldn’t tell from the stage but -- well. You’re very arresting.”

 

“I got your attention didn’ I?” Shine teased, elbowing Harry slightly. “Now whaddya say? We getting outta here or what? Or, hey, you could always come hang out for a drink.”

 

With a glance back to Shine’s friends that Shine wouldn’t have noticed without watching Harry as closely as he was, Harry’s smile fell. 

 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said and Shine braced himself for the worst. “They’re all--” 

 

“Street trash?” Shine filled in with a bite to his voice, and Harry’s eyes widened. 

 

“No,” he said immediately. “God, Shine, no. I was going to say ‘young.’ They’re all young, attractive...” He paused, suddenly introspective, and when he spoke next it was in a voice so low it barely reached Shine over the clamor of the bar. “You could have your pick of this place tonight. If you wanted to -- to go home with someone else.”

 

Shine narrowed his eyes at him. “Why would you say something like that? D’you  _ want _ me to?”

 

“I don’t  _ want  _ you to,” Harry clarified. “But you  _ could _ . You know you could.”

 

“No I couldn’t,” Shine protested. “Wouldn’t feel right, you know.”

 

“Why?”

 

“‘Cause I love you, goon,” Shine said simply, and he didn’t quite realize what the words meant until they left his lips as naturally as if he were breathing them. But, well, they  _ were _ true. “I ain’t gonna run around on you just ‘cause Trudy batted her eyes at me.”

 

Harry’s eyes widened. 

 

“Oh don’t make a stink,” Shine said, waving away Harry’s shock. “You couldn’t’a thought I felt any different, right?”

 

Swallowing, Harry stepped a little closer, his hand coming to Shine’s sleeve to tug him forward. Shine was the one looking around this time, ensuring no one was watching -- no one but Shine’s friends, at least, and even they had become largely distracted.

 

“Shine,” Harry said lowly, and Shine’s full attention returned to him. “Two men -- we can’t  _ fall in love _ . That’s not how it works.”

 

“Don’t gimme that shit,” Shine said softly. “That’s them talking.”

 

“Who?”

 

“You know,  _ people _ . The ones who don’t know nothin’ about ‘two men’ ‘cept it makes them itchy to think about it. You know  _ you  _ can fall in love, right?” Harry’s only response was a look of sympathy, almost pity, and Shine raised his eyebrows. “What, you sayin’ you came all the way to a shitty bar in Queens to watch me play ‘cause you like my ass? You came for  _ me _ , big guy.” 

 

Harry stared at him, and Shine couldn't figure out why this was so hard for Harry to grasp. “You don't gotta say it,” Shine said. “I know and that's what matters.”

 

“Shine, we can’t --” he paused, seemed to steel himself to say something. “You see, there’s something I need to --” 

 

“Are we getting outta here then?” Shine interrupted pointedly, entirely unwilling for Harry to ruin his big night just because he couldn't say he loved him. Shine  _ didn’t  _ need to hear it. He just needed Harry. “Gotta grab Bertha and say goodbye to my pals if so.”

 

Harry glanced to Shine’s friends, then back to him, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes tight, as if he were in pain. 

 

“Alright,” he said, like signing his own death warrant. “Alright, let's… Get out of here, then.”

 

* * *

 

He might’ve been dreaming. The world was warm, the plush, familiar covers of Harry’s bed curled in soft around him, and the whole scene might have been a projection of the worries that had wormed their way into Shine’s heart since he left the bar with Harry.

 

But on the edge of consciousness at some point in the night, when the moon was high and full enough to gleam white through the windows, Shine was sure he woke up to Harry’s fingertips tracing his spine, the quiet murmur of Harry’s voice.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Harry whispered. Over and over again he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Shine. I’m so sorry.”

 

Sleep took Shine again before he could ask why. 

 

* * *

 

It had been a few days, but that wasn’t wholly unusual. When Shine had left Harry on Sunday morning so Harry could head off to church, everything had  _ seemed _ fine. Harry had pulled Shine into his arms and given him one of those deep, bone-melting kisses, the kind that made Shine’s toes curl and his heart hammer and his blood turn to fire. And Harry had said “goodbye.” He’d said “I’ll see you soon.” And the likelihood was Harry was just working late these last few days. He was busy with that big case. It happened.

 

Shine couldn’t go knock on his door -- not without Harry’s say-so that he wouldn’t be spotted -- so he just played his usual circuit and hoped Harry might appear, as he always did, watching from the other side of the station corridor, a gentle face flickering in and out of view through the passing crowd.

 

But Harry didn’t appear. Not for a few days. Then, not for a week. And Shine would’ve feared the worst if he wasn’t sure the news would be all over the death of a lawyer in a prominent city corruption case.

 

It wasn’t like Harry to just go AWOL though. And Shine began to wonder more and more if that dream he’d had their last night together was a dream after all.

 

“I’m sorry,” Harry had said.

 

For what?

 

* * *

 

When the door creaked open and Shine pocketed his keys, he expected to walk into a darkened, empty apartment. Instead, a veritable wall of cigarette smoke seemed to smack into him, and he was greeted through the haze by the sight of his mother at the little round table by their far window. 

 

She was dressed for work, her hair up in a frizzy black mess on top of her head, but if she planned to head to the bodega she should’ve been gone hours ago. It was edging into evening and behind her the sky had begun to purple like a bruise.

 

“Ma?” he coughed, waving his hand as he approached, kicking the door closed behind him. “I thought you had work.”

 

She looked up from the table, where her eyes had been fixed, unfocused. A cigarette leaked feathery tendrils of smoke in her hand, and Shine could tell by the contents of the ash tray that she had been chain smoking again. Maybe for hours. That was never a good sign. 

 

“Shine,” she breathed, his name carrying so much weight that Shine’s mind immediately went to the worst possible scenario. 

 

“Ma, what happened, who died?” He dropped his violin case by the door and approached, grateful at least that she wasn't crying. 

 

When she smiled, it looked forced. “Nothing. No one,” she said, and waved her cigarette at the chair across from her. “Sit down.”

 

As Shine obeyed and flopped into the seat across from her, he plucked a still-smouldering butt from the ashtray, glaring at it suspiciously. “Ma, you know the doc told you to cut back. What's got you all shook up?” he flicked the butt back into the tray, raising his eyes to her. 

 

She took a long, deep drag, then let out the smoke on a sigh. Flicking the ash absently on the floor, she pointed toward the wall. “There's some stuff arrived for you today,” she said. “Put it on your bed.”

 

“Okay,” Shine said cautiously. “What stuff?” He hadn't been expecting any packages, let alone anything that would make his ma so upset.

 

“I guess it ain’t fair to say it ‘arrived,’” she said, tossing air quotes around the word. “Thing is, Harry dropped it off.”

 

“Harry,” Shine repeated, the familiar name sticking to his tongue. “ _ My _ Harry?”

 

His ma’s eyes lingered on his, and his stomach dropped into his feet at the look of sympathy in them. She’d worn that look so many times throughout his life -- when the teacher had shoved him to the back of the room ‘cause he couldn’t memorize his times tables; when he’d come home with the broken nose, too young to understand how others could sense the deviance in him, and why they found it repulsive; when the burglars took Shine’s favorite records; when he dropped out of school.

 

And now --

 

“I don’t think he’s your Harry anymore,” she said quietly, her small hand reaching across the table as if to take Shine’s. But he jumped to his feet before she could, kicking the chair to the floor. Even as she opened her mouth to speak, Shine rounded the table and ran toward his room.

 

Flicking on the light, his eyes fell immediately to the bed, where two instrument cases had been laid as if they were sleeping children. Stumbling over to them, Shine popped the clasps on the guitar case, already knowing what he’d find before he lifted the lid.

 

Sure enough, it was the guitar Harry had gotten him for Christmas. Its pearl inlay gleamed in a rainbow of colors in the flickering sepia light of his room, its gold glinting so out of place here that Shine wondered if he was truly dreaming this time. This guitar didn’t belong here. It belonged at Harry’s.

 

Panic seizing his heart, Shine turned then to the smaller case -- unmistakably a violin. “No,” he said aloud, “no you son of a bitch, you goddamned --” he popped the brass clasps, lifted the lid …

 

And there was Harry’s great-grandmother’s violin. The Tomasso Balestrieri. A violin worth tens of thousands of dollars. A violin Shine had cradled under his chin just often enough to know its weight and its voice, but had been too afraid to fall in love with. He stared at it -- couldn’t help staring at it -- because Harry wouldn’t  _ give _ this to him. He  _ couldn’t _ have. Certainly shouldn’t have.

 

But here it was.

 

“He told me to tell you he was sorry,” a voice said from the doorway, and Shine whipped around to see his ma standing there, leaning on the doorframe. “I told  _ him _ I was liable to break his neck for hurting you like this, but he said ‘better now than later.’ Couldn’t really fault him that.”

 

Gaping, Shine tried to wrap his mind around each word, tried to imagine Harry. Here. In his apartment. After all this time claiming it was too dangerous, claiming he didn't belong, he had come. 

 

And he  _ knew _ Shine wouldn’t be home. 

 

When it looked like Shine couldn’t speak, his ma walked gently into the room, and came to kneel with Shine on the floor by his bed. He slumped against it, everything heavy, and one of her hands came to rest on his knee.

 

“He’s moving,” she said softly. “To D.C. Gonna play lawyer to some bigshot politician. Asked me not to tell you that.” Shine stared numbly at her, and she sighed. “It wasn’t gonna work out, honey. You had to know it couldn’t last forever.”

 

“Why not?” Shine asked, the edge to his voice surprising even him.

 

Her eyebrows shot up. “Why not?” She parroted. “Honey, you’re seventeen. He’s  _ my _ age. And an important guy on top of all that. It’s obvious he cared about you, but --”

 

“He loves me,” Shine said, and it was only when he heard his voice trembling that he realized tears were threatening to spill from his eyes. “He loves me,  _ present tense _ , and I love him. I don’t care how old he is or --”

 

“Well  _ he _ does,” she interrupted, voice hard. “And he did the right thing here putting an end to it. He even gave you something to remember him by. He didn’t have to.”

 

Shine looked to the instruments still sitting in their cases like coffins, those beautiful instruments that had been held by Harry’s gentle hands mere hours ago. Even now he could see Harry’s chin against that violin as he played, smiling wider with every note. Even now he could see the reflection of the guitar in Harry’s eyes, begging Shine to take it. Those beautiful instruments. 

 

Shine would smash them both to pieces if it meant Harry would stay.

 

“He’s already gone, isn’t he? To D.C.?” Shine asked. Because somewhere inside him, he knew.

 

“Left as soon as he dropped these off,” she replied. “Last stop, he said.”

 

Shine closed his eyes, sank lower onto the floor, tears leaking down his cheeks unnoticed. “Why didn’t he … why didn’t he tell me?”

 

Rubbing Shine’s thigh, she scooted closer on the floor, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “I can't tell you that, honey. It’d just make it worse.”

 

Shine turned to look at her, though his vision was swimming. “But you know,” he accused. “You asked him.”

 

“Course I did,” she said. “Some fancy lawyer knocks on the door of my walkup, you bet your ass I'm gonna ask him why he didn't just meet you wherever it is the two of yous meet.”

 

“Ma, please tell me why,” Shine said quietly. 

 

She sighed, curled her arm around Shine’s shoulders and pulled him in for a sideways hug he didn’t want, but was too tired to resist. “Said he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye,” she said. It wasn't the full answer, but it was enough. Harry was always so careful. So fucking careful. And so scared of everything. Especially Shine. He had always been afraid of Shine.

 

“‘Course I called him a lowlife coward,” she continued, “and damn near threw him out the window, but -- Shine?”

 

His hands had moved to her shirt, and without realizing he was even doing it, Shine clutched the fabric so tight it made his hands ache. Shoulders shaking, he began to sob, and she curled her arm tighter around him. “Shh, shh,” she soothed, as if he were a child. For the first time in a long time, he felt like one. “I know it hurts, honey. I know.”

 

“I’ll kill ‘im,” Shine sniffed pitifully. “I could fuckin kill him, ma.”

 

“I know,” she said again, stroking Shine’s hair. “But it’ll get better. I promise. It's for the best.”

 

For the best. 

 

Shine tried to choke down his tears. 

 

_ For the best.  _

 

It would have been better if they’d never met at all. 

 

* * *

 

He tried the door anyway. The familiar blue front door of Harry’s apartment, now empty, Shine knew. He damn well  _ tried it anyway _ . He knocked until his knuckles bled, until a neighbor poked his head out of his own door and shot Shine a dirty look down the hallway, threatening to have him removed.

 

Shine, in his secondhand shoes and ratty jacket, who had never belonged here. He didn’t belong here now.

 

* * *

 

Staring over the East river from the Brooklyn Bridge always felt like a religious experience. From here, he could see his city, his home, everything he knew stretched out around him. Buildings rose into the crisp blue sky while the cool wind of early spring blew by, and Shine breathed in the familiar sting of exhaust fumes coming off the cars speeding by.

 

It was his birthday today. April 18, 1977. And he was alone.

 

* * *

 

Crisco Disco, they called it, which felt appropriately vulgar. As DJs spun records and colorful lights flashed ‘til they burned his eyes, Shine raked his gaze over the dance floor, watching the grind between hips, the big hands roaming over sweaty, bare chests, the leather, the lamé, the spilled drinks causing shoes to stick to the floor. And the way every man moved as if it were his last night alive.

 

Shine had been standing there by the door, frozen for incalculable minutes, soaking it all in. The kind of place he’d always wanted to go. The kind of place he’d always wanted to take Harry. Full of people like him -- like them. And here he was.

 

But he couldn’t move. At least, not until a hard slap to his ass brought him back to reality. He was too numb to jump at the contact, but turned instead to the owner of that hand, a man twice his size in nearly every dimension. Dark skin, warm eyes. Perfect, really. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a pair of tight jeans that clung to his massive thighs, and Shine felt that hot, wonderful thrill of attraction surge through him for the first time since Harry had left him.

 

The man winked, moved past Shine, and made his way to the dance floor. If he hadn’t looked over his shoulder, hadn’t met Shine’s eyes, Shine might not have realized what the man wanted. He’d had his ass slapped enough times without an invitation behind the act. But that look was clear enough. Drugged on the scent of sweat, the music and the warm darkness of anonymity and the warm comfort of being wanted, Shine followed.

 

* * *

 

Trudy’s hair spread like river deltas over the pillow, her eyes fluttering in her sleep as the strawberry glow of the motel sign across the street colored everything in sight in pink. The light tickled the bare slope of her shoulder, her hip and thigh where she had one leg curled over the blankets, and Shine felt good. Warm. Satiated.

 

Rolling over, he took his earlier-abandoned joint from the bedside table ashtray, struck a match to light it up, and laid back against the scratchy pillow. It felt better -- that hollow ache in his chest. Every time he fucked it felt better. Every time someone fell asleep beside him with a smile on their face. Like Shine mattered to them. 

 

And Trudy was good to him when she felt like it. Like Marco had been good to him. Like Roger was going to be good to him tomorrow night if he kept their date this time. 

 

Inhaling deep, Shine let the hot hum of an insufficient high drag him off into that familiar hazy, directionless quiet, just glad he remembered to pinch the end of the joint to kill its ember before he fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

Shine wasn’t going to play Harry’s violin on the streets. Nor the guitar, for that matter. But even though his ma had assured him that Harry said they could sell the instruments if they needed, Shine couldn’t bear to. “We’re getting by,” he said to his ma. “Let’s save ‘em for a rainy day.” 

 

They’d had a lot of rainy days since then, but Shine kept hold of those instruments. He had to.

 

And, no, he  _ couldn’t _ play that violin on the street, but in the bars and clubs? In that dim light where he was separated from the audience by a stage, and folks were mostly too drunk to notice the perfection of the instrument’s construction? He could play it until his heart broke anew, missing Harry with every note.

 

It had been months since Harry moved, since he left Shine here alone. Shine had only finally begun to understand why, though it had taken him a while to sift through the haze. Harry wanted to be a politician someday, wanted to change the world. Couldn’t have the baggage of some twink from the city weighing him down. So it was better this way. Better for Harry, at least.

 

For Shine? Well, Shine hadn’t finished school, didn’t have many friends who hadn’t now turned into occasional hookups. He never saw his ma, and Betsy and Maria were biking cross-country. All he had now were these bars and clubs, where he’d built up a steady audience of his own. And all he had now were the people who caught his eye on stage -- people who might take him home for a night of company if they liked his songs; if they liked his face or his ass or whatever it was about him they might have liked. Frankly, it didn’t matter to Shine anymore.

 

Tonight, it was the bartender. Behind a pair of thick, round glasses, she seemed to watch him all night, relentless in her scrutiny. He didn’t fail to notice the tight shirt that showed the outline of her bra, or the stretch of tawny-skinned belly that revealed itself every time she stretched. She had teased her bright hair to a soft poof, and she smacked gum between her teeth, as if ready to eat Shine alive. 

 

And, too, it was the man who might’ve been her boyfriend -- or something like it. The guy grabbing her ass every time she walked by, dragging her into his lap, talking in whispers and shooting looks Shine’s way. There was an intention behind those looks that Shine knew well by now.

 

And as Shine pulled the bow along the strings for the final note of the final song of the night. As he bowed and the music faded into the sound of scattered applause and (much louder) distracted conversation, he came to terms with the fact that this violin was all he’d ever have of Harry again. But there were other things he could have. Other pleasures. Other ways to take his mind off the weight of everything.

 

He closed up his violin into its case, descended the stairs of the stage, and made his way toward the bar.

 

“Nice set,” the man said as Shine approached, and the bartender leaned over her bar, grinning.

 

“Real nice,” she agreed. She grabbed the empty shot glass her boyfriend had just been using and poured out a finger of whiskey. “On the house,” she said, shoving it toward Shine.

 

He gave them a winning smile -- the one he was best at. “Just a drink?” He asked, but he took the shot glass anyway and knocked it back without a second’s hesitation. Setting it back on the bar, he pushed it toward her as if his every instinct weren’t telling him to say ‘thank you.’ As if he was living, not just projecting, the image he thought they wanted. “The way the two of yous been eyeing me all night, I thought you might have something else to offer.”

 

The couple traded a look, a smile, and the bartender laughed. “Ain’t you a cheeky one? I’m off shift in an hour,” she said. “Joey here’ll take you back to our place in the meantime. If you want. Then we got all night, the three of us.”

 

“Got plenty to keep you busy while we wait for her,” Joey said, and he patted his pocket. Shine didn’t know what was in that pocket, necessarily, but the phrase ‘fuck it’ seemed to be passing through his mind rather frequently lately. Could be those white tablets he’d tried at the disco, or a couple ounces of weed. It could be something harder.

 

And it didn’t matter. He was up for anything.

 

“Alright,” he said, though the flirtatious smile on his lips felt forced. “I’m all yours.”

 

And he was. For tonight, at least, he was all theirs. Tomorrow he could belong to anyone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are going to be at least a couple more stories in this series -- one about Shine's relapse (with a little bit of him meeting the love of his life to cheer everyone up), and one from the POV of Shine's mother, and probably one about him officially coming out to the entire world in a TV interview, depending on if I finish it. Please subscribe to this series ("Stories About Shine") if you're interested in more! 
> 
> I love this boy, so there will probably always be more. But for now, the conclusion to Shine and Harry's arc <3

**Six Years Later**

**June, 1982**

 

The rubber pads of the chair legs squeaked loud against the linoleum as Shine scooched forward, trying to make himself comfortable. These new chairs, this new table, this new kitchen, this new _apartment_ felt like a pair of shoes he hadn’t worn enough to break in. There were no cigarette burns on the vinyl tabletop, no flaps of duct tape accumulating dust and hair where they had peeled away from the cracking floor, no cracks in the floor _at all_ , no spaghetti sauce stains on the wall behind the stove. It was empty but for him, clean and modern and sleek, and not the kind of environment that typically offered inspiration.

 

But as Shine uncapped his pen and stared down at a pad of hotel paper he’d purloined from some Quality Royale hotel in Massachusetts, he found he didn’t need much inspiration for this. For his music, yes, he needed to cater his environment to suit his lyrics and the delicate arrangement of notes. For a letter? All he needed to write a letter was an intended purpose. And that purpose was currently shoved into a closet in his spare bedroom, though it remained much on his mind.

 

He lowered pen to page.

 

 _Hey, shitbag_ , he began, which was his first mistake. Immediately, he crossed the whole line out, already feeling six years of resentment welling back up, an anger he didn’t want to feed anymore.

 

 _Hey_ , he tried on its own. But it didn’t feel right to leave the letter unaddressed.

 

Shine took a breath and looked out the window, where the midday summer sun glinted off glass and steel so bright it obscured the usual swaths of blue sky between buildings. From this high up, he could normally see the whole cityscape. That was why he had rented this apartment, after all -- the seamless Manhattan view. But right now the world was all just light. Shining.

 

Turning back to his work, Shine tore the first page off the pad, crumpled it absently, and tossed it to the side. Then, steeling himself, he wrote open his floodgates.

 

_Hey, big guy._

 

That was all it took.

 

\----

 

By the time Shine felt his momentum lagging, the backdrop of the city sky had bled like watercolors into hues of magenta and violet outside his lonely window, casting a rainbow of colors on the abused pad of paper before him.

 

Front and back, he had covered more than half the pad with crazed scratches of smeared ink. A life story that he didn’t need to share with Harry. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. And he was nearly certain that he shouldn’t.

 

Swallowing, Shine flipped back to that first page, reading it all over. For what it was worth.

 

The writing became scrunched and manic the farther he read, and he realized as he bit at his nail and tapped his foot restlessly under the table that he didn't mean every word laid out before him now. He didn't mean to make it sound like it was Harry’s fault. For a long time, a _long_ time, everything had felt like Harry’s fault, and a few years ago that was all Shine had needed to blame Harry for it all.

 

But the insecurities Shine had harbored back then were his own, and he was responsible for collapsing back into them when Harry kicked one of the legs out from under his life. The mistakes he had made were his own, too.

 

Thankfully, the letter didn’t blame Harry for the worst of it. Shine took ownership of the heroin, the slow slide into addiction that had felt so good and so necessary until it didn’t anymore. Until he couldn’t recognize the track-marked skeleton staring out from the mirror. That was 1978.

 

Shine took ownership of the abusive partners he hadn’t seen for what they were until he looked at them through black eyes. He took ownership of the fact that he was the one who forgot he deserved respect. No one had taught him that but himself. That was 1979.

 

But taking ownership of the mistakes meant he could take credit, too, for the recovery, for figuring out how to stand up again after he’d fallen so far. And he had stood up. _I even kicked the fucking cigarettes_ , he had written proudly, furiously. That was 1980.

 

Reading it to himself now, Shine laughed. “Like that was some big deal,” he muttered, rubbing his head. He wished he had a cigarette.

 

The letter talked about the cigarettes, the cancer that had grown its roots in his mother’s lungs and flourished there in the smoke. The letter talked about how she’d died, in a stiff hospital bed, six months after the doctors had said she wouldn’t last another week. That was 1980, too.

 

And only then, in the wake of that grief, did the letter return to its intended purpose.

 

 _Its intended purpose_. Shine had almost forgotten about it by the time he read that part to himself.

 

 _Its intended purpose_. The violin. The Balestrieri, which Shine had sold two years ago to pay for his mother’s chemotherapy, hospital stays, medications and a few indulgent joys in what turned out to be the last months of her life.

 

The violin. The Balestrieri, which Shine had spent the last few months tracking down, and spent a small fortune to buy back. The violin he couldn't bring himself to look at anymore, and couldn't bear to play, and didn’t need to sell, and didn’t want to hold onto.

 

_I need you to take it back._

 

The letter ended there. Shine leaned back in his seat.

 

Flipping through the pages absently, Shine felt hollowed out. His whole debut album had been about his recovery, true, and he’d poured his grief and anger into every last track. But these subjects were couched in metaphors in his music. There was no hiding the truth in these ink-stained pages, and Shine figured he had been overdue to unbury it all. But it wasn’t fair, or right, to bury Harry in turn.

 

This letter detailed a thousand illegalities and sexual indiscretions, many of which were not solely his own. If it fell into the wrong hands -- anyone’s hands but Harry’s -- the resulting scandal could ruin them both.

 

As sunset continued its slow conquest of the sky, Shine flexed his aching hand. Decisively, he ripped the pages from the pad and set them off to the side.

 

“First chapter of my memoir,” he joked lamely to himself. Then, returning once again to a blank page, he forced out a new draft. Simple, short and sanitized for anyone who might happen upon it.

 

_Hey, Harry,_

_Where can we meet up? Soon? NY or DC. Don't matter to me._

_S. Trzebinski._

 

He only went by “Shine” on stage -- a suggestion from his publicist, who had anticipated the trouble journalists and deejays seemed to have pronouncing his surname -- so hopefully only Harry would know who it came from.

 

* * *

 

Five days after dropping that letter in the post, Shine found a small, nondescript envelope tucked between a few bills and advertisements in his mail slot.

 

Tearing it open before he’d even closed the door behind him, he dropped the rest of the mail to the floor.

 

 _Old Landover Park, D.C., 2 a.m. July 24._ Signed with only the letter H.

 

Nothing else. Shine didn't know what he expected; he hadn't sent the first draft of his own letter, either. But then, maybe New York State Senator Harold Patterson just didn't have much to say to Shine. After all, he hadn't even bothered with ‘goodbye.’

 

* * *

 

**July, 1982**

It was surprisingly muggy here, Shine thought, breathing in that thick, heavy air as he settled back on the bench. In the darkness, he couldn’t distinguish many features of the park but the gravel path that lay before him and stretched out in either direction, the little forest beyond, the grassy knoll behind him. Its slope led up to the road, but it was high enough, removed enough from the streetlights to cast the whole park in shadow. In the lampless night, his eyes began to adjust, making out the graffiti carved into the bench -- the names of lovers he couldn’t quite read without a light -- and the tiny shadows of bugs hopping between blades of grass.

 

He shifted, cradled the violin in his lap, and tightened his hold around the case, as protective of it as if it were his firstborn child. At this time of the night, it was unlikely anyone would consider visiting a nondescript neighborhood park -- a solitude Harry had likely been counting on when he proposed the location -- but if anyone popped out of the bushes and tried to take this violin, Shine would give them hell.

 

Except, of course, the person he had _asked_ to come take it.

 

At the thought of Harry, _Senator_ Harry, Shine laughed for lack of anything else to do, a lost little chuckle like a teapot letting out steam.

 

In honesty, Shine was shocked Harry had responded to his letter at all. Even back when Harry was just a lawyer, he had been private to the point of paranoia. Now, as a barely tested politician with a lot to prove and a critical voter base, Shine could only imagine the pressure Harry was under. He found he didn't want to.

 

Shine had watched the elections two years ago, watched Harry’s ads and his debates and his speeches in hopes that Harry might come out and say it. Someday. Of course, he never did. No matter he’d have the vote of every queen in New York if he came out on TV, Harry wouldn’t risk his dreams of political office. Harry was terrified of risk. Shine didn’t know if that made him a better or worse politician. Shine didn’t know if it mattered.

 

A few minutes passed like this, Shine lost in his thoughts, checking his watch here and there, though it was hard to see its face. He could tell it was already a bit past two, but as the time ticked forward, Shine began to wonder if Harry might stand him up. He wouldn’t blame him, necessarily.

 

Thankfully, it wasn’t much longer before the sound of footsteps on the gravel path caught his attention. Out of caution, he curled his arms a little tighter around the violin as he turned to the figure approaching down the path, but the caution turned out to be unwarranted.

 

Even after all these years, even in the lack of light, that figure was unmistakable. He felt certain that even blind he would know it was Harry whose broad shoulders carved their silhouette against the black.

 

Harry had his hands shoved in his pockets -- still wearing a long coat, even in the muggy heat -- and Shine guessed by the tired shuffle of his shoes against the gravel that Harry had been walking a long time, like he’d parked far enough away to deny ever being here. So much of _Harry_ felt encapsulated in that moment, in that silhouette, and Shine couldn’t help it. He set the violin on the ground by his feet and stood before he even saw Harry's face.

 

Harry didn’t move any faster when he saw Shine standing there. Rather, he walked like a man on his way to the gallows, slumped and slow. When he finally drew close enough, Shine walked just a few paces to meet him, trying to tamp down his nerves.

 

He never got stage fright, but this was a special occasion.

 

“Hey, big guy,” Shine said, the old nickname sounding strange and forced, even though he couldn’t stop himself from saying it. “You come here often?” He tried for a smile, but it didn’t come easy.

 

“Not if I can help it.” Though he wore his own strained smile, Harry looked pained, deep wrinkles carved along his forehead and at the corners of his eyes -- wrinkles he hadn't had six years ago. Little else about him had changed but a dusting of gray at his temples, barely visible in the low light. Shine didn't know by his bearing if Harry wanted to shake Shine’s hand like some constituent, or sweep him into his arms like the lovers they had once been. He did neither.

 

“Sorry I’m late,” Harry said, lifting his wrist lamely where Shine could just make out the edge of a gold watch band under his sleeve. “I, uh, underestimated the walk.”

 

“It’s casual. I ain’t been checking the time,” Shine lied. “Glad you made it ‘fore I got cold feet.”

 

Harry swallowed, nodding. “I admit I wasn’t sure -- This morning, I mean. I thought maybe I shouldn’t come.”

 

That didn’t really surprise Shine, but he kept his mouth shut about it. “Well,” he said. “Here we are, anyway. C’mere and sit.” He returned to his place on the bench and waved to the opposite side, leaving a wide space for Harry to occupy. Of course, when Harry did sit -- after a moment of obvious hesitation -- he settled on the far end, half his ass practically hanging off the edge. “It's good to see you in 3D,” Shine said with a poorly timed laugh, “y’know, ‘stead of on C-SPAN, I mean.”

 

“You watch _C-SPAN_?” Harry asked, one of his bushy eyebrows raised.

 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Shine said, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m an engaged citizen of the world and all.” At that, the skeptical look in Harry’s eyes deepened. Shine sighed. “ _And_ my hairdresser always has it on, if you gotta know.”

 

Harry’s lips curled in a softer kind of smile, and Shine wished he had any control over his heart -- the way it sped up at the gentle look. “I like it,” Harry nearly muttered. “The hair, I should say.”

 

Shine had almost forgotten the hair, honestly. It had been purple now for nearly a year, since the photoshoot for his album cover. He tugged at a lock of it absently, feeling his face heat. “Yeah?” He asked, if only because he didn’t expect stuffy Harry to approve of dyed hair. “I do too, honestly. My publicist suggested it. Branding, and all.”

 

“Branding,” Harry echoed, a little laugh in his voice as he shook his head and looked down to the ground. “You know, I heard your song on the radio the other day. Knew it was you before the deejay said a word. It was … it was good. It was really good.” Shine tried not to react to the pride in Harry’s voice, the pride he had been so thirsty for as a young man. Plenty of people had called his single ‘really good’ since he’d released it. But this was _Harry_ , whose opinion still carried so much weight. Harry took a breath, continued. “They called you an ‘overnight success.’”

 

Shine snorted. That wasn’t the first time he’d heard the term. “Overnight my ass,” he said, which thankfully made Harry laugh a little bit, the tension fading between them moment by moment. “ _They_ ain’t been working 20-odd years for it.”

 

Harry paused, clasped his hands in his lap. “I suppose you wanted to see me to tell me I was wrong?”

 

Blinking, Shine leaned back incredulously. “About _what_?”

 

“‘There’s no career out there for a pop violinist,’’ Harry said with little sheepish smile, eyes lifting to Shine’s. “Didn't I tell you that once? When I was trying to get you into the classics?”

 

Shine snorted, relief flooding him, though he wasn’t sure why. “Oh don’t give me that. You _were_ right.” Shine reached across their distance to whap Harry gently on the arm, like he used to do. “But a pop multi-instrumentalist with an _emphasis_ on violin? Seems to be a market for that. I got fans now, you know. ”

 

“If anyone could’ve done it…” Harry said, but he left the thought unfinished. Blinking away from Shine’s gaze, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He paused, and Shine was just about to try to fill the silence when Harry continued. “I suppose I have no right to say it’s good to see you too. After everything.”

 

Shine’s chest clenched, the comfort of moments ago stripped away immediately. “Harry--”

 

“Please, Shine,” Harry said, and he straightened up once again, heaving a breath. “I should make this right. I knew this might happen eventually and I -- well, I prepared for it. Just name your price, and you’ll get it.”

 

 _Prepared_ …? Shine paused, opened his mouth, closed it, and tried to go through a list of things Harry could have prepared for, when even Shine hadn’t been sure he’d go through with this until he actually made it to the park tonight. “What?” Shine settled on, dumbfounded.

 

Harry reached into the pocket of his coat, and Shine watched in helpless confusion as he pulled out a sleek leather wallet. “I have a good reputation,” Harry practically murmured. “And I think I'm doing a good job --”

 

“I voted for you,” Shine offered, a lame attempt at diffusing the tension. Harry smiled, but Shine could tell he didn’t feel it.

 

“The point is, Shine, I don't want my … _private_ life becoming public. I took some cash out of the bank today, but there’s more if -- if you need more. So whatever it costs to keep what happened between us out of the newspapers --”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Shine practically shouted, “you think I'm blackmailing you?!” His voice seemed to echo against the nearby trees and Harry rushed to shush him, looking around.

 

“You mean you're not?” He hissed a whisper.

 

“Why would you think that?” Shine asked, trying to keep his voice down. The thought had never even occurred to him. All the hard years, even when he’d done nearly anything for drug money, he hadn’t even considered --

 

“Six years since I left,” Harry said, scooting closer, “and suddenly you turn up during an _election year_ asking to meet up? What was I supposed to think?”

 

Hurt in spite of himself, Shine shuffled up against the back of the bench, crossing his arms. “Thought you knew me better than that,” he said.

 

Harry seemed to flounder for words. “I thought you _hated_ me,” he said miserably.

 

“I did.”

 

A heavy pause hung between them. The crickets chirped out in the trees, and Shine shifted uncomfortably, his sneakers scraping loud on the gravel. This was a bad idea. He should get it over with, throw the violin in Harry’s face and run back to New York. He should’ve known Harry would be as out-of-touch as he had always been, as concerned for his reputation, as blind to all the qualities in Shine he once claimed to care for.

 

It seemed Harry wanted to get it over with, too. “So why _did_ you want to meet with me?” Harry asked, sounding lost. Shine sighed, the spirit of his reason soured by Harry’s assumptions.

 

Leaning down, Shine took the handle of the violin case and lifted it onto his lap. It had a familiar weight, but it was too heavy anymore -- carrying six of the worst and best years of Shine’s life along with its centuries of history. “I wanted to give this back,” he said, caressing the case gently, taking a last look at it in his hands.

 

“Shine, that was a gift,” Harry said immediately.

 

“It was,” Shine agreed. “Best gift anyone’s ever given me, believe it or not.” He looked up, met Harry’s questioning eyes. “I sold it,” Shine explained. ‘bout two years ago. It paid for everything. The hospital and the tests and the chemo and all that … What I’m saying is this violin gave me a little extra time with my ma, before the cancer got her, in the end.” He paused, sighing. “I can't ask anything more from it. Wouldn’t feel right.”

 

In the darkness, the gleam of Harry’s eyes seemed to stand out. He looked _genuinely_ sympathetic. Shine didn’t know why he would be. He’d only met Wanda once, and she had threatened to kill him. “I'm so sorry,” Harry said. “I didn't know. About your mother.”

 

“How could you have?” Shine asked, a hint of the old resentment in his voice. The understanding that Harry didn’t know what Shine’s life was like. He never had. “That ain't the kinda thing makes it to the news.”

 

“She seemed like a really fine person,” Harry said, grasping for the right things to say like people always did. “She clearly loved you. Worried about you.”

 

Shine wanted to tell Harry that Wanda had been right to worry. Wanted to tell Harry that his abandonment had sent Shine down a path he nearly didn't emerge from. But Shine was healing. _Had_ healed. And he wasn't here to make Harry feel guilty. He was here to close a door that had been left ajar for six years.

 

“She did,” he agreed, eyes wandering out toward the trees. “And I wasn’t so good to her, up ‘til the end there. That’s why I gotta give this back. I’m making amends, repaying debts.” He paused. “Closing doors.”

 

“You sound like a twelve-step program,” Harry joked somewhat desperately. Shine’s lips quirked.

 

“Been through a few of those. They don’t work for me.” He could nearly hear Harry’s surprise. The unasked question in the widening of his eyes. Shine sighed. “Been a long six years,” he explained. When he looked back to Harry, there was something hollow in Harry’s expression.

 

“Drugs?” he asked, and Shine almost laughed.

 

“You got no idea. I think I done every pill, powder and shot under the sun.”

 

“Are you still --”

 

“No,” Shine said immediately, and he didn’t think Harry deserved the relief that washed over his face. “I kicked it. Everything but the booze. A little dope now and then.”

 

“Are you …” Harry paused, his lips thinning. “Never mind.”

 

“Am I what?” Shine asked, though he thought he knew. Harry was going to ask if he was clean. The other kind of clean.

 

“I just -- with everything going on with men like us ... and drugs increase the risk of catching it. If you were using needles. I’m just --”

 

“I’m fine,” Shine said. “Had a ex-boyfriend -- a _kind of_ boyfriend. He, uh.” Shine paused, blinking past the pain like he was used to doing anymore. “He got it. A couple friends, too, from the old days. I been lucky.”

 

“Lucky,” Harry echoed, nodding. “Me too.”

 

Shine wasn’t sure he deserved the relief _he_ felt, either. He worried about Harry. He worried about everyone he knew. But, too, Harry so often felt like part of the system that didn’t seem to care whether the addicts and the queers died out. “We wouldn’t need luck if your fancy Washington friends thought about _my_ friends at all,” he said a little bitterly.

 

Their eyes met, and Harry looked heavy. He just looked heavy. “I’m trying,” he said.

 

The bitterness faded. “I know.”

 

For a moment, they sat in silence, and Harry let out a breath. “I’m glad you’re -- you’re doing alright. I know it doesn’t feel like it but, Shine, I always wanted you to be alright.”

 

“I know,” he said again.

 

“And you’re happy? With your work?”

 

Shine sighed. “Do you honestly care?” he asked. “There ain’t no obligation here. I’m giving you this violin whether you ask me ‘bout my feelings or not.”

 

“I care,” Harry said, and he scooched closer again, closing the distance between them by inches. It wasn’t enough. “I’ve always thought about you.”

 

Shine clenched his teeth behind his lips, hoping Harry didn’t notice the tension that snaked up his shoulders, tightening his every muscle. He wanted to ask why Harry didn’t write, or call, or visit, or anything for years. But he _knew_ why. It wasn’t worth it to ask.

 

“I’m happy,” Shine said, closing the matter. “I’m on the radio. I got a fancy Manhattan apartment. I’m happy.”

 

Harry nodded, as though he didn’t quite believe Shine, but he didn’t want to contradict him. “I’m proud of you.”

 

“You ain’t got no right to be,” Shine snapped, and Harry looked away. Shine regretted his outburst the second it left his lips.

 

“I know,” Harry said, “I’m --” but Shine shoved Harry’s arm before he could continue.

 

“Stop, stop, I’m sorry,” Shine said, his tone just on the edge of whining. “I didn’t mean that. You gave me that guitar. Taught me to read music an’ all. I owe you for that much, and I ain’t gonna pretend I don’t.”

 

Some tension seemed to bleed from Harry’s shoulders. “You don’t ‘owe’ me. I owe you, if anything.”

 

Shine didn’t want to agree, but that angry, aggrieved part of his heart _did_ , and he couldn’t help it. “Why’d you do it, Harry?” he asked without accusation. He just sounded tired. “I ain’t holding grudges no more. It didn’t _end_ right, but it couldn’t have lasted neither, and I know that. But why’d you just fuck off without saying anything?”

 

Harry’s hands flopped uselessly into his lap. “I loved you,” he said effortlessly. How could he say it effortlessly now when he couldn’t even force it back then? “And I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I was scared.”

 

Shine knew that, at least. He’d known it for a long time. But it felt necessary to hear it from Harry himself. “You got someone?” Shine asked. “Now, I mean. A boyfriend?”

 

Snorting dismissively, Harry leaned back against the bench. “No,” he said. That was all he needed to say. Shine heard his excuses under the surface. _It’s too risky. I’m too important. My family would disown me. I’d lose my job._ “Do you?” The question caught Shine off-guard, though it shouldn’t have.

 

“No,” Shine admitted. “I don’t do --” he paused. “I just have fun. No strings.”

 

Harry nodded like he understood. Shine wondered if Harry knew it was his fault -- the fear that gripped Shine’s heart whenever he felt too tenderly for a temporary lover, a one-night stand. Anyone. But he reminded himself forcibly in that moment that his choices were his own. Harry may have been a catalyst for the last six years, but really it wasn’t Harry’s fault that Shine didn’t know how to fall in love anymore. That he wasn’t sure he wanted to fall in love anymore.

 

“Anyway,” Shine said, shaking his head to get past it. All of it. Everything. That was the point of all this. “I didn’t come here to catch up.” Shine shifted, turned to Harry, lifted the case and offered it up. “Take it, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

 

Harry stared at it. “Shine --”

 

“Please, take it,” Shine said, shoving it closer. “I mean it.”

 

Their eyes locked, and something in Harry seemed to crumble. “You said you sold it. Why did you buy it back?”

 

“Cause I could,” Shine said. “I got money now. More than I ever had in my life. Figured this belonged with you, and if I could give it back to you, I could …” he paused, shook his head. “Just please, take it, Harry.”

 

Harry ran his eyes over the case, clearly conflicted. Then, almost in a whisper: “Play me something first?” He sounded like a child asking for a bedtime story. Shine’s heart seemed to stop beating as he stared into Harry’s eyes.

 

“What?” He asked. Harry brought his hands to Shine’s and pushed the violin against Shine’s chest.

 

“Play me something,” Harry said again, voice stronger. “Please.”

 

“Why don’t you just buy my record, you cheapskate?” Shine asked, still holding the violin, feeling lost and falling back on the only thing he could always access -- sass. “You can hear me play anytime you want.”

 

Harry laughed, catching Shine entirely off-guard. “Come on,” he cajoled, his tone reminiscent of so many years ago ( _come on, stay in bed, please_ ). A lover’s request.

 

Shine looked around the empty darkness of the park. It _was_ empty. It _was_ dark. But the road lay right up the hill where even this late he could see the shine of car lights slide by every once in a while. If anyone passed the park on foot, they’d be certain to hear the music. Wasn’t Harry usually the cautious one?

 

“Here?” Shine asked. “Now?”

 

Harry’s smile slipped, but it didn’t fall, and Shine read everything he needed to see in that expression. They were never going to see each other again after this. And looking into Harry’s eyes Shine understood that they both knew that. It was here and now or nowhere and never.

 

Lowering the case into his lap once again, Shine braced himself. He hadn’t planned on playing the Balestrieri again. Hadn’t even planned to _look_ at it again. But if it was the last time he would ever see Harry, it was the last time he’d ever see this instrument, too. Maybe this was another door that needed closing.

 

With reluctant fingers, Shine undid the fastenings on the case, feeling his chest tighten when he saw the violin laying in there. It was just as beautiful as ever, gleaming in its little coffin, waiting for someone to bring it to life.

 

“What do you want to hear?” he asked. Like he always used to ask when he wanted to make Harry happy.

 

“Your favorite song.”

 

Shine snorted, if only to cover his nerves as he pulled the violin from its case and set it on his shoulder. “I hope you ain’t gunning for Simon and Garfunkel,” he said. “I’ve grown as a person since then.”

 

“Oh?” Harry asked, almost playfully. “So what’s your favorite song now?”

 

Shine smirked. “You’re gonna think it’s stupid. You hate pop music.”

 

“Try me,” Harry said. Shine rolled his eyes and arranged his fingers, setting up the bow. It might have been disingenuous to call this his favorite song now. It was the song his mother had sung to him during his recovery, on the really bad nights. It was the song he played for her in the hospital, almost every day. It was the song he played at her funeral. But it was special to him, and it had helped heal him twice in his life, now. Maybe it would help Harry, too.

 

“Maestro presents,” Shine said with a mocking flourish, “a seminal favorite by Swedish composer, ABBA.”

 

“ABBA?” Harry asked, and Shine tapped Harry’s head with the bow.

 

“Hey, you said you wanted to hear my favorite song,” Shine said. Harry laughed, batted away the bow with a careless hand.

 

“Right, right,” he said. “By all means, Maestro. Go ahead.”

 

Without giving Harry further chance to make fun of his choice, Shine closed his eyes and set up the violin, keeping his back straight, his hands steady -- though they seemed intent on trembling.

 

After a few beats, he began to play. It was a familiar song, Chiquitita. As easy to access as any of his own original music. Playing it always felt like running into an old friend. The kind of friend he was happy to see, but never sought out anymore.

 

Shine didn’t look at Harry while he played. He wasn’t sure he could. Instead he closed his eyes and felt the tune slide through his fingers. Though he played as quietly as he could, the sound seemed to amplify through the air, ringing out against the knoll, the trees, climbing high into the night. He sang along here and there, barely a whisper; couldn’t even hear himself over the music.

 

But when he finished and pulled that last note out of that beautiful, ringing violin, he felt Harry’s eyes on him. Intense. Enraptured. As if watching him through the crowd of a subway station.

 

Pausing there, holding that instrument against his shoulder, Shine second-guessed giving it to Harry for the first time since he’d bought it back. It felt so warm and natural settled against him, and he _missed_ it. He actually missed it. It reminded him of his first tour, traveling the East Coast with a van full of instruments and a few friends he prayed could play them as well as he could. He’d sat in the front seat the whole way to Boston, playing along with the radio while Alex drove. A violin made by a master, used to play lame disco covers.

 

It had never belonged in Shine’s hands.

 

With a hard swallow, Shine lowered it back into its case and strapped it in. “That song sounds real good on this violin,” Shine admitted quietly.

 

“I want you to have it,” Harry said, and Shine finally looked up to him again. His expression felt open, uncontained, spilling six years of heartache that Shine didn’t even know for sure that Harry had felt until now. But there it was, clear as day. “Please, keep it.”

 

“No,” Shine said, and he handed it out to Harry one last time.

 

“If you want it for your work --”

 

“I don’t,” Shine interrupted. “I never wanted it.”

 

 _I wanted you_ , he tried to say. _I wanted you to stay_. The words didn’t make it to his lips, but he wondered if Harry heard them anyway.

 

Harry looked to the instrument, and his shoulders seemed to slump. Resigned, he reached out and took it delicately from Shine’s hands, freeing him of one small burden.

 

“I'm -- I’m sorry, Shine,” Harry said again. He laid the violin in his lap and ran his hands over the leather, almost unconsciously. “I know it wasn’t fair. Or right. Leaving the way I did.”

 

Shine let out a breath. He had been through too much to hold onto a 17-year-old’s heartbreak. Harry’s absence had gutted him, back then, but it didn’t hurt as badly anymore. Not when he weighed it against everything else.

 

“I know you’re sorry, big guy,” Shine said. “Thanks for saying it. And for, well,” he gestured to the violin, “everything else.”

 

Shine wondered in the following silence if Harry had any regrets. If he regretted taking Shine home that first night, welcoming Shine into his life. If he regretted leaving. But Harry had his dream now -- politics. Prestige. And Shine had _his_ dream. His music. The music Harry had helped give him.

 

Slowly, Harry reached out, and his hand came to rest (as it so often used to) on Shine’s thigh. His thumb stroked Shine through his jeans, and Shine’s heart ached at the touch -- how everything and nothing had changed between them. Watching Harry’s hand for a moment, it took all his courage to raise his eyes to meet Harry’s. They looked familiar, even in the darkness. Especially in the darkness. As if Harry had just caught Shine sneaking back to bed after playing the Balestrieri in the middle of the night. That look transported him back to those carefree days, his first love, the way his heart turned over in his chest when he saw Harry’s sleepy face pressed against the pillow.

 

They were older now, the two of them. Wiser. But wisdom had no place in love. Not a love like theirs had been.

 

Without intending it, Shine laid his hand over Harry’s own and tightened his fingers, leaning forward just as Harry did the same. In the comfort of their public solitude, the quiet of that heavy, dark night, they kissed.

 

It was dangerous, stupid, but Shine did it anyway. Everything he did was dangerous. Stupid. Their lips fit together with nostalgic familiarity, a kiss to say good morning, to say goodbye, to say ‘I missed you.’ Shine reached up to cradle Harry’s head, fingers threading through his hair. He let out a sound, or maybe Harry did, a whimper of reluctance, acquiescence, helplessness.

 

Harry shifted closer and the violin case clattered to the ground, echoing like a gunshot in the silence. His hand came to cup Shine’s cheek, and Shine pressed forward into him in turn. It didn’t matter who deepened the kiss then, whose hands grasped too tight and whose tongue traced that seam of lips -- whose fault this was -- because in the end they were both to blame.

 

Harry yanked Shine against him, Shine’s body melting against that familiar chest as they kissed near frantically. Harry’s hand slipped under the collar of Shine’s T-shirt, fingers hot against his skin, and Shine gripped Harry by the hair to keep him close. They kissed like they wanted to devour each other, all teeth against teeth and nails scraping skin. Shine bit down hard on Harry’s lip, Harry took a sharp breath, and Shine realized -- They could tumble into the grass here, tear open each other’s clothes, or Shine could sink to his knees on the ground and give Harry one last parting gift. They could go back to Harry’s place, go back to his car -- hell, they could go behind the trees and fuck out six years of frustrations. They could make a thousand mistakes tonight.

 

But they wouldn’t.

 

“Stop,” Harry gasped, pulling away and ducking his head. “We -- we have to stop.” He laid his hand flat on Shine’s chest, holding him back. Shine wanted to pull him back in, some petty and intrusive desire for revenge rising in him. Some petty and intrusive desire to make Harry love him again, if only so Shine could be the one to leave this time. But he would’ve stopped this if Harry hadn’t. Harry was poison for him. They were poison for each other. Shine’s shameful impulses were proof enough of that.

 

They regained their breath, and Harry’s hand trailed down Shine’s chest before he pulled it back, scooting away to put some distance between them.

 

It was for the best.

 

_For the best._

 

It would have been better if they’d never met at all.

 

Shine rubbed a hand over his face and tried to calm his pounding heart. A familiar shot of shame reverberated through his veins.

 

Before Shine could speak, Harry stood abruptly and took a few steps away from the bench, leaving his violin there in the dust. Shine took note of his tight shoulders, the way he stood like an automaton, trying to force down any feeling.

 

When Harry finally turned back to him, their eyes met. Lingered.

 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, still out of breath. “I shouldn’t have --”

 

Shine held up a hand, waving him away. “Naw, that’s on me,” he said, digging deep for his powers of deflection. Anything to turn this around. “I’m irresistible. Just gotta learn to control this pretty face, that’s all.” He tried for a smile.

 

Harry didn’t laugh. Shine probably should have expected that. He didn’t much feel like laughing either. Running a hand through his hair, Shine stood, too. Though he felt almost dizzy, wrongfooted by the scent of Harry’s cologne and the feeling of Harry’s lips still lingering on his own, he knew it was up to him to finish this now. Bending at the waist, he retrieved the violin, brushing off the dirt.

 

Harry stood stock still, watching as Shine approached. Though there were crickets still chirping, though a car passed somewhere up on the road, though there was sound still in the world, everything _felt_ silent.

 

Shine didn’t know what else there was to say. He brought his hand slowly to Harry’s and positioned Harry’s fingers over the handle of the case, letting go of it himself as Harry tightened his grip. Harry’s eyes fell to the contact, Shine’s fingertips grazing his knuckles.

 

“This is it, then,” Harry said. It wasn’t a question.

 

“Yeah,” Shine said. He swallowed and, in a moment of weakness, he leaned up and pressed a kiss to Harry’s cheek. The goodbye he never had the chance to give. “But we’ll see each other again,” he said, drawing away. “You on C-SPAN. Me on MTV.”

 

Harry laughed a little -- a quiet, hollow thing. “I suppose so. I’d -- I’d like to wish you good luck, Shine. Not that you need it.” Pulling away, Harry straightened, as if he were trying to pretend this meeting hadn’t drained him as much as it had drained Shine.

 

“That it?” Shine asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nothing else to say to me?”

 

Harry’s lips quirked. He had always known what Shine needed to hear. Even when he didn’t always say it. But he’d say it now. He had to. “Goodbye, Shine.”

 

Relief washed through him like warm water. “Been waiting six years to hear you say that,” Shine said. He didn’t know how he was smiling.

 

“That it?” Harry echoed, and somehow he was smiling, too.

 

“Goodbye, big guy,” Shine said. “And, ah, good luck. To you, too.”

 

Harry took a moment and seemed to swallow down anything else he may have wanted to say as he held Shine’s eyes. Then, he turned as if he had to force himself to do so. As he began to walk back down that lonely path, Shine wondered if Harry could feel the weight in that violin he carried. His responsibility now.

 

Somewhere in the wide open, vulnerable hallways of Shine’s heart, a door clicked shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! It means a lot to me. I love this boy with my whole entire heart, and it's been really fun to share his story with you. <3 Look out for Wanda's tale (and the secret to why Shine has a ridiculous name) coming eventually!
> 
> All my love. Shine on!


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